Originally Posted by JandK
Originally Posted by Zenith
Yes, I was. I mean, how can you not have emotional investment in the freaking Arch Fey patron of the land, who is the only one that can restore the shadow lands to their beauty before the curse? Or the fact he was Halsin's only friend and first teacher of the path of nature when Halsin's family got killed? Obviously he's not a talk show host, he just woke up from a slumber brought on by Shar's curse. He was recovering, and when you leave Act 3 you start to see the beginning of the land's rejuvenation.

Only one?

I'm the one who did all the work, good grief.

*

I felt like he was a bit pointless as an inclusion. The Act would have been fine without him. Better, possibly, especially if that same effort had been put into the Thorm family.

To piggyback somewhat off of Zerubbabel's comment above, I feel like this act should have been devoted to Shar and Myrkul. Bringing in some Thaniel kid spirit we don't save and never really talk to seemed out of left field, narratively speaking.

I mean, Thaniel doesn't even fix the land. It still all comes down to us taking out Ketheric. All it does is personify the land, which (at least in my opinion) was unnecessary, and actually somewhat detrimental the more I think about it. Specifically, because his personification of the land doesn't do anything for the flavor of the setting. The land itself felt corrupted and interesting. To see it reborn would have been powerful if left at that. But to tie it all to Thaniel lessens all that magnificence and stuffs it into a boy with next to no personality, at least from what I saw.

*

I'm beginning to realize how much I dislike Thaniel in the game. Bah humbug.


We don't need more Thorm family drama. It's made pretty obvious through all the freaking books around town and the dialogue with some of them that they're a highly dysfunctional family, each gripped by a different vice and put on steroid by Shar's corruption. We have Ketheric and Isobel's daddy-daughter drama on top, and Shar has entire arcs in every act of the game, including Shadowheart, I don't need more arcs on characters we already have plenty of. Myrkul's entire theme runs through Balthazar, Ketheric, and the Grand Mausoleum. It's not like Bhaal got that much more in Act 3 outside the murder chain and Bhaal Tribunal, and we won't even talk about Bane.

I get it, you don't care about Halsin or the background of the Shadow Cursed Lands. But the game is not only made for neutral or evil characters obsessed with edgy grimdark motifs and cynicism. And quite frankly, showing the denizens of the forest before the land's corruption is interesting for many people, including druid players and archfey warlocks.

Last edited by Zenith; 05/09/23 04:15 PM.