The Vaalyr Prophecy - Prologue: Misty Hollow

beeblebrox69 · May 2013

The Vaalyr Prophecy
Prologue: Misty Hollow
NW-DISM87G71

CAMPAIGN: The Vaalyr Prophecy
QUEST: Prologue: Misty Hollow
AUTHOR: @beeblebrox69
ID: NW-DISM87G71

CATEGORY: Balanced
ESTIMATED LENGTH: 35-45 minutes, more if you partake in the Easter Egg hunt and the puzzles involved
PLAYERS: 1 + companion (healer companion recommended)

SYNOPSIS: Easy money. Just a simple supply run to a mining camp up in the Crags. You stop to rest in a small village called Misty Hollow, a peaceful, scenic little country town where you meet a girl who has bad dreams. But the town has a dark secret. And when night falls and the darkness swallows the village, an ancient evil begins to awaken... And the girl's dreams become your nightmare.

My goal with this adventure was to replicate an evening of real life beer 'n pretzels D&D. There's some flavor RPing in the village beforehand, lots of combat (many encounters can be carefully avoided if you choose to do so), some puzzles, some tongue-in-cheek encounters, some bad jokes... everything you'd get around the table.

There's also a bit of an Easter egg hunt throughout the adventure. I've hidden 7 "Polyhedrons of Power" throughout the various maps. None of them are THAT hard to find, but see if you can grab all seven and turn them in to Quartermaster Jay at the mining camp. He'll give you a passcode to mail me in-game, and then I'll add you to the Hall of Fame list here in this thread. Depending on the timing, I might offer prizes to some of the first victors.

This is my first Foundry quest and I'm looking forward to getting some feedback. I'm especially interested in hearing how well the game holds up in some of my key set pieces that wound up being very FX heavy. I don't have a top of line rig by any means, and haven't noticed any slowdown or anything... but let me know if you do and I'll cut out some of the shinies.

If you enjoy it, please share the ID with your friends and guildmates.

KNOWN ISSUES:
A few typos that I'm still discovering
A few NPCs keep getting stuck various places, but not with every run through

COMING SOON (But probably not until Chapter 1 is complete):
Nightmare Mode for the two combat maps
A wider range of cultist skins
Possibly more randomization of encounters

beeblebrox69 · May 2013

Change Log

1.5
-Added a subtle lighting hint for the hidden path to the Purple Polyhedron. If you need another hint, Fritz the halfling was looking for Purple Polyhedron before he met his demise...

1.4
-Fixed dozens of items that mysteriously moved a couple inches during some of the Foundry updates. Most importantly, the entrance to a certain farmer's secret room where one of the Polyhedrons is hidden.
-During a previous edit, I accidentally removed the dialogue prompt link that removed the Magic Mouth after interacting with it. The sparkly now disappears after interaction.
-Added music to a couple areas, particularly the final battle.
-Tweaked some of the room destruction bits during the final battle.
-Fixed a few typos.

1.3
-Removed the numerous spellplague cracks in the final chamber during Phase III of the boss fight. Loved the visual and the minor damage to the player, but I think it was hurting the boss and resulting in no XP or loot. I'd rather the player get rewarded and look into other visual options (if it even needs them...the final phase of the boss fight is a scream anyway)

-Added a few flavor bits to ease the transition to hell breaking loose at nightfall... hopefully it isn't so jarring now.
-Added a very brief dialog with Mayor Cooper in the Chapel of the Red Hand-Afternoon to also indicate the village is on the verge of chaos
-Removed the random encounters. They were cool and were meant to encourage multiple runs offering different enemies, but ultimately they just slowed things down.
-On that note, removed and/or replaced a handful of encounters to speed things up.
-The hallway leading to the Summoning Room in the Lost Catacombs used to have four attached rooms containing random spawns. The rooms have been walled off and their inhabitants sent to an alternate dimension. The Magic Mouth that spawned said encounters has had its dialogue reworked.

1.2
-The Army of Darkness gag is now encouraged, with the dialogue specifically telling you that the encounter is not meant to be winnable... and adding a surprise cameo who mops up the encounter for you... (and no, it's not who you think)
-Fixed the wonky triggers at the Magic Mouth
-Added a trigger to spawn the 2 patrols in the Burial Chamber and that seems to force them apart as intended
-Changed the wall in the Summoning Room so the Archmage wouldn't keep getting stuck under the lip
-Mayor Farsyn and Shelby should be faster now
-Cleaned up some more dialogue typos...might be a few still hiding from me

1.1
-Reworked Farmer Deen encounter so that he spawns right away
-Added a dialogue prompt giving warning to the Army of Darkness joke
-Minor dialogue fixes

1.0
-Initial Publish

beeblebrox69 · May 2013

- Hall of Fame -

Congratulations to the brave explorers below who risked life and limb and sanity (and precious inventory space) to find all seven of the Polyhedrons of Power! HUZZAH!

Karitr - Our first official winner! CONGRATS!!!
Keiran25

bassbone72 · May 2013

This was awesome. One of the best Foundries I've played. A little long, but worth it! Can't believe this is your first quest!

bobcat1313 · May 2013

That was amazing!!!

mrrobsworld · May 2013

I've added your quest to my long to-do list. Please check out my first quest as well.
Descendant of Simon -- NW-DDMY3WOTA --
Thanks.

beeblebrox69 · May 2013

Hey thanks, y'all! I'm glad you guys enjoyed it. Just published a patch that will HOPEFULLY shave some time off and encourage more people to give it a shot. I know the 60 minute run-time was turning a lot of people off. Once the patch goes live, I'm going to give it a run through and see how it goes.

Hopefully I didn't break anything in the process that someone catches before I do... XD

Thanks again, and remember, the best thing you can do if you liked it is SPREAD THE WORD!

Mrrobsworld, I'll give your quest a shot this evening if I get a chance.

beeblebrox69 · May 2013

Good news! If you're looking for a speed run and aren't interested in the story or Polyhedron hunt, you can tackle this in about 35 minutes now. Add another 10 for oohing and ahhing and reading the dialogues and I SHOULD have this shaved down to 45 minutes without sacrificing anything vital.

Tell your friends! Tell your enemies! Tell your dog!

But above all, ENJOY! XD

boneninja03 · May 2013

Loved your quest! It was a ton of fun, just the right level of challenge (20 to 21 cleric solo). You did an amazing job with the effects and transitions and ambushes and spawns. Really phenomenal. Will say you've really inspired me to continue to push and learn how to better use the foundry in my own quests. I just loved so many things you accomplished. The story was really interesting, and I can't wait till the next installment.

Most entertaining moment, when I finally killed the last of the army of darkness (and only one death on my part!) and THEN found the little DM...DOH! Wrong East I guess LOL. And was that miner at the end a reference to Grunkle Stan? Hilarious if it is.

Few minor things I noticed:
1. Misspelled word in the dagger dialogue in the first room where you meet Father Ambroah (sorry for spelling!)
2. There are some placeables (altar or flower pot like things) that were originally right outside the chapel, when you exit the chapel (at the beginning of the storm coming in) they are strangely gone with no explanation. Not sure if this is intentional or not.
3. In pursuing the Father I explored into the side rooms, on the one to the left, going up the stairs, you find the statue that is wobbly and chained to a platform above it. That platform has an intractable item on it...but I don't seem to have any way to get to it, or reach it, so I have no idea what it is. Not sure if this is intentional or not either. The only thing I thought of was you got up there through the long sealed passage that I didn't have the skill to examine further? I even tried running up the drapes in the room.

Overall, amazing job!!

hekl3rpost · May 2013

Well done. There were some grammatical/spelling issues. I remember one of the last NPCs says "you expire me" I am assuming you meant inspire. Searching "interactable" items wasn't compelling for me, so I found myself not doing it. also 7 quest items is a lot to hold onto. Perhaps you could reduce the number of polyhedrons and increase the intensity in obtaining them.

Spoiler
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I loved the Demon Pigs and Demon baby.

Keep up the good work.

beeblebrox69 · June 2013

Thanks for the feedback guys!

@boneninja03 - Thanks, fixed the spelling and added the prayer receptacles to the Misty Hollow - Evening map. They were a late addition to tie into some well shenanigans and I forgot to add them to the evening map. As far as the chained up wobbly statue, man, you were SO close... and the thought of climbing the tapestries was correct... you were just apparently on the wrong one. There's a clue as to which one you should climb...the brazier you have to jump on is not lit.

Not story-breaking or anything, but it does lead to a secret area and one of the Polyhedrons of Power, as well as an encounter that DOES relate to the overall campaign story.

@hekl3rpost: The "expire"/"inspire" mix up is intentional--Shelby gets some words wrong sometimes, depending on your dialog choices. In this case, you even call her out on it with the response "IN-spire. I INspire you." But thanks for pointing it out, because I don't doubt there might be other typos hiding throughout... As far as the Polyhedron hunt, I know 7 is a lot to lug around, particularly in a long quest where you might get overloaded with loot. I wish the devs would give you a separate "Quest Item" backpack for these sorts of things, but alas, not yet. There is definitely a sort of intensity to finding them, because they really aren't just sitting out in interactables... I'll drop a new post in a minute with a hint on where they are, since nobody has found them all yet. Thanks for the feedback and the demon love.

Chapter 1 is well underway, is shorter, and is a bit more traditional dungeon romp.

beeblebrox69 · June 2013

Since nobody has found all of the Polyhedrons of Power yet, here are some brief hints on where they are:

1. RED - The red PoP is given away as a freebie at the start of the adventure.

2. ORANGE - Located in the first Misty Hollow village map. The drunk dwarf can give you a clue as to its location if you share his love of Muppet songs. There is something clearly labeled that it will get you there, but it's in the wrong spot and will need to be moved. You will need to entice what it's attached to to move.

3. YELLOW - The evil priest collected this PoP and hid it in his chapel. At night, after all hell breaks loose and the chapel is in a state of destruction, you can even find the pouch he kept it in, but at that point it's too late--you need to find it and pilfer it the first time you visit the chapel.

4. GREEN - There's a way into Deen's house during the night, when the village is under attack and burning. The Farmer is a sick, evil person, and you'll find lots of horrible, nasty stuff in his man cave. Apparently he accidentally ate the green PoP and... well... hold your nose and dig in.

5. PURPLE - Towards the bottom of the grand stairway in the Lost Catacombs beneath the chapel, you can actually see the purple PoP, but there's no way to get there. During your afternoon in Misty Hollow, you might have come across a halfling named Fritz. Fritz went snooping and it cost him his life. His body is a clue to where you must go.

6. BLUE - My favorite movie is Raiders of the Lost Ark. Collecting the blue PoP is an homage to his escape from the Well of Souls.

7. BLACK - The Magic Mouth took two magic words to open, both written on scraps of paper in the two side rooms in the Lost Catacombs. There's a third scrap of paper hidden in the room at the base of the grand stairway. Those three words can dispell the magic runes imprisoning a demon protecting the final PoP...and gives you my favorite bad joke of the quest.

Hopefully this will help some people embark on my little Easter egg hunt.

beeblebrox69 · July 2013

Bumping for the holiday weekend.

Plus I've been out of town and haven't had a chance to fix all the tiny little problems some of the Foundry updates apparently caused. Spent a couple hours last night moving dozens of objects back to their original spot. If you catch any more floating objects, let me know!

Have fun!

karitr · July 2013

Meh, I was just entering the miller's home when I got a loading error and was returned to the log-in screen. Seems the Foundry system is playing up right now so I will pick this up again tomorrow.

I was really enjoying your story. Love the humour, my character's journal and the tight-rope walk :cool:

I am not especially looking for typos - it is very well written - but right at the beginning, back in the Enclave, Alrica mentions "heresay" when she means "hearsay".

karitr · July 2013

Finally got some time this afternoon to complete this adventure.

It is extremely clever, well-crafted and well-paced. The characters of Shelby and Julianne are adorable and the villain is suitably caricatured. If there was any typo other than the one mentioned in my post above I didn't spot it. Not only is it a clean read, it is a very enjoyable read too. And what a nice touch at the end.

In SW:TOR I am one of the minority who enjoy datacron hunting, so your quest had an extra special appeal for me. However, I think there may be an issue with obtaining the purple polyhedron that made it harder than it was meant to be (an invisible wall that possibly shouldn't be there?). It was the only one that didn't feel intuitive at least, so you may want to check that out - feel free to PM me if you need more detail.

Now I have followed the hunt to its conclusion, I shall replay Misty Hollows solely to enjoy the story and combat - very well balanced on my L60 character. I spent such a long time on purple I may have skewed your 'average'

zovya · July 2013

Have to say. Some of the best characters in a foundry quest so far. I loved them all, even the evil ones. Loved the special effects. I know one I'm going to steal from you (muhahaha). I particularly liked the way you told the story through journal entries.

beeblebrox69 · August 2013

Glad you two enjoyed it! As a big fan of your campaign, Zovya, I'll be curious to see what effect you swipe...

Karitr, you're now officially listed as the first to find all seven Polyhedrons of Power... CONGRATS!!! I, too, was a fan of hunting the datacrons in ToR. The Purple SHOULD be pretty easy, if you go the right way. Did you try jumping over the rubble at the bottom of the chamber, or did you take the hidden ledge path above and drop down into the Purple room?

karitr · August 2013

beeblebrox69 wrote: »

Karitr, you're now officially listed as the first to find all seven Polyhedrons of Power... CONGRATS!!! I, too, was a fan of hunting the datacrons in ToR. The Purple SHOULD be pretty easy, if you go the right way. Did you try jumping over the rubble at the bottom of the chamber, or did you take the hidden ledge path above and drop down into the Purple room?

Blimey, someone is on Carribean time

I couldn't climb the rubble, so walked around the ledge above. However, to get to the ledge I had to walk up the bannister, most of which was blocked off by an invisible wall. Walking up from the bottom of the staircase meant I was able to squeeze behind the wall, but it felt as if I had found an unintended way in. I probably spent about 3/4 of an hour on that one polyhedron, so please don't disqualify me for 'cheating'

PS: See you in another month!

beeblebrox69 · August 2013

LOL... Actually spent most of July on a massive road trip, sorry 'bout that.

And no worries--you found a way there, so no biggie. There's an opening in the rocks on the second floor that leads to a long ledge over and around the stairway. Hop down onto the arch, then enter a secret room that has a hole that drops you down into the purple chamber. The opening in the rocks was REALLY hard to see, so based on your feedback, I added a purple glow inside to guide others.

Chapter 1 is a little over half done. The first combat map is complete as of this afternoon. The second combat map is built and just needs to be decorated. From there, I've got the concept of the boss chamber and fight down but it'll take some time to put it all together because it's going to use several timers and a lot of environmental changes. I haven't completely decided on how I'm going to bookend the story--I'd prefer to only have to build one more map to keep the loading time to a minimum for a change. I'm HOPING to get Chapter 1 out by the end of the month...preferably sooner.

Thanks again for playing and participating in the Hunt!

karitr · August 2013

Hey apologies not needed. I hope you had fun on your trip.

I will play again and try and follow your instructions. I know I backtracked to the entrance trying to find a secret crawl space with no luck. The rocks that collapse onto the staircase again look scalable, but eventually led to a gap that was just too far for my character to jump. I really enjoyed myself though - your quest is one of the more vivid in my memory

beeblebrox69 · November 2013

Shameless bump. Chapter 1 is down to working out the dynamic boss fight, so HOPEFULLY will be released soon. In the meantime, enjoy Misty Hollow. XD

beeblebrox69 · December 2013

Chapter 1 is up! I still have a few tweaks I'd like to do and it needs a handful of decorations and sounds and some general polish, but it's 98% done and ready for some initial feedback. Please give it a run if you have a chance, and let me know what you like/don't like!

THE VAALYR PROPHECY
Ch. 1: Goblin Grotto
NW-DSR6ZUDM2 (in the FOR REVIEW tab)
20-30 minute initial/exploration run
15-20 minute speed runs for your daily

Thanks for your help and support!

chieori · December 2013

Greetings!

I attempted to run your first quest today "Goblin Grotto".

I made it into the Grotto, to the bridge, the encounter there attacked me before I could hit the switch, all of them at once killed me, then when I respawned, it put me behind an invisible wall, I couldn't move from that spot as it was on the edge and it wouldn't let me budge in any direction. The mobs were able to hit me, but I couldn't hit most of them, since I couldn't move. Also my hireling was not behind the wall, as I was and as such died almost immediately. I released twice trying to get a better position after the rez, but still ended up behind the wall. I left at this point.

Let me know when you get a chance to address these issues and I will try it again.

beeblebrox69 · December 2013

Hey there Chieori... sorry about that. I'll take a look at what's going on there... That part of the map was done long ago, before the addition of the 3D editor, so there's probably something simple there that's whacked out right now. Seems like every time I put in a little cutscene like this as a joke, it goes awry and screws somebody.

Right now the Foundry is having some serious issues publishing, but as soon as the latest version, which should address this and a few other minor issues I've come across, is up and running, I'll drop another reply here and send you a PM.

Thanks for giving it a shot, and I'm sorry about the problem!

beeblebrox69 · January 2014

The gamebreaking issue on Goblin Grotto should be resolved now. And there was much rejoicing... yay.

That adventure now has its own thread now as well:
Goblin Grotto

Thanks, and sorry again. Turns out the respawn point was just pointing in the wrong direction...

The Vaalyr Prophecy - Prologue: Misty Hollow

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