The Cursed: Thief Lesson

[Part of the Cursed story line]

The mystery of Montaron is not much of a mystery. The Harpers killed him since he was spying on them for the Zhents, just like they kill Xzar when the team goes to report back to him. Jaheira decides to leave the team to work for this Harper branch, so Catharina finds a replacement in the somewhat crazy lady Hexxat at the Copper Coronet. Hexxat has a burning desire to revisit the graveyard so that's where they go.

They also kept his corpse in a chest. Nasty.

As a thief, she is much better than Raven at detecting traps (and she teaches him a bit) which is handy as she leads them down into one particular crypt and right to... the vampire that's mind controlling her. The vampire "Hexxat" kills her thrall and begins making demands of the party, which isn't really great for first impressions so Catharina and company just end up killing her too.

They hire the dwarf fighter Korgan nearby, who is hunting for a tome in one of the crypts but finds that his old crew have beaten him to it. These vagrants seem to also have raided the house of the collector who wanted the book, killing all inside so Catharina has no qualms in tracking them down and ending them in the same fashion.

Insight: Detect traps never turns on automatically for Raven as he is player generated, which is why Hexxat seemed to be so much better at finding them. Simply remembering to press that button makes him much more useful.

The Cursed: Graveyard Visit

[Part of the Cursed story line]

The team is invited to the graveyard by a mysterious woman, so they go during the day but still find the tombs teeming with undead and giant spiders. The spiders in particular have built a massive hive that connects a number of the deeper tombs in such a way that triggers my arachnophobia. Good thing the party has no such problems, since gassing them with cloud kill is pretty effective.

They do take a bit of damage down there so are forced to surface to regroup - finding that night has now fallen. A vampiress named Bodhi appears and tries to get the team to side with her against the Shadow Thieves and in return she will help find Imoen, all for the low price of 15,000 gold! This offer is turned down because vampires suck, and Bodhi leaves disappointed.

Bonus points for trying to charm the party.

On the way back to an inn the party comes across a man almost beaten to death in an alley way. At his request they carry him all the way to the docks where he is delivered to a large building which turns out to be the local Harper base. The necromancer Xzar, who was once believed dead but is better now, then appears and tasks the group with infiltrating the base to find out what they did with his buddy Montaron. Jaheira is unhappy that the group agrees to do this.

Insight: The tombs in the graveyard are painful. Lots of strong, draining undead and the lower levels are riddled with traps.

The Cursed: Another Detour

[Part of the Cursed story line]

Finally convinced by Jaheira to go to Nashkel as the situation is dire (really? doesn't feel that way), Catharina and company run into more elite hobgoblins who almost kill Neera with poisoned arrows. Fortunately Jaheira can cure it, but in doing so leaves herself open to a hobgoblin backstab which cripples her. Khalid is in tears as his wife is put on a random wagon back to the Friendly Arms Inn for medical attention. As usual, Baeloth makes snide and inappropriate comments.

"At least she wasn't backstabbed with a flaming sword... up the ass!"

This results in the drow sorcerer being voted out of the party at Nashkel proper. The low HP Neera is also side lined to recover from her near death experience after defeating yet another would be assassin at the inn. Replacing them is Rasaad the monk who immediately gets along with Khalid, Minsc (and his miniature giant space hamster Boo) who want to save a woman named Dynaheir from gnolls, and the Thayan Edwin who wants to kill a woman named Dynaheir. Party Girl wonders if it's the same woman. She has low INT.

While almost everyone else is asking that the party investigate the nearby Nashkel mines to solve the iron shortage (because random adventurers are qualified to do that apparently), Catharina wants to avoid having another walk out like Montaron so they delay heading there again and instead head West to the gnoll stronghold to find Dynaheir.

Insight: If left to their own devices, party members will converse with each other. This can also lead to in party fighting if they don't get along - mainly stemming from alignment differences. If you keep everyone busy though, they'll never get a chance to act out.

The Cursed: Patience

[Part of the Cursed story line]

Imoen's crew encounter Ajantis on the road and recruit the paladin to the team, deciding to help him hunt down the bandit threat. They successfully slay a number of ghouls, sirens, half ogres and a mass murdering necromancer as well as finding an idiot who polymorphed himself into a chicken.

Pretty. Pretty evil.

Ironically, a skull is required to undo his spell but no one had been picking them up and now no skeletons were dropping them. He'd have to live as a chicken for awhile longer!

Despite the moderate success the party still suffers a loss when Montaron loses his patience and decides to abandon the team to go ahead to Nashkel mines, solo. The wandering ranger Kivan, who is also hunting the bandit menace, eventually takes his place.

Insight: As I learned in this entry, the game NPCs have timed quests. It pays to do them if you want said NPCs hanging around. Also, you might want to hang onto one skull for the silly chicken. 

The Cursed: Stopping the Unstoppable

[Part of the Cursed story line]

Catharina gets quite a shock when her group reaches an area that is home to basilisks as the slow lizards manage to petrify Lu Lingqi, Sir Erland, Yuria, and Elisabeth - removing them from the party! Catharina and Party Girl flee for their lives all the way back to Beregost.

They can also be found in Neverwinter Online's Undermountain!

After a good wash of their soiled clothes they encountered Imoen at the tavern and meekly asked to join her team Xzar, Montaron, Garrick, and Kagain who is always looking for more female talent for his escort business.

Imoen accepts, and shows just how lousy her leadership is when the party heads to visit the nearby mage tower as both Xzar and Garrick are slain by knife throwing bags of bones (skeletons).

On the plus side, Catharina finally learns the identify spell from said mage and finds out that half the magic gear they are carrying is actually cursed.

Insight: For the more prepared, petrification is actually easy to get around with protection spells, mirrored eyes potions and stone to flesh scrolls but I didn't know of these at the time. When I finally did learn about them I decided to play this out as it was anyway so that I wouldn't curb stomp the game with six overleveled characters.

The Cursed: Gorion's Foolishness

[Part of the Cursed story line]

In hopes to protect her, Gorion spirits away with Catharina only to run right into a band of assassins led by a heavily armored scum. Gorion tells Catharina to flee while he gets slaughtered by said crew who then abandon pursuit for some reason.

But looking scary is tiring!

Fortunately, Catharina's childhood friend Imoen tailed her, and brought her other party members too. Since this adventure is going to be too dangerous for the troublemaker, Imoen is instructed to go back home but she refuses - instead deciding to make her own party of adventurers starting with the two psychos on the road Xzar and Montaron.

Catharina wishes them luck and heads on to the Friendly Arms Inn as per Gorion's last instructions. There the party meet a sulky orc named Dorn, and Gorion's friends Khalid and Jaheira. The couple try convince Catharina to look into the iron problems in the Nashkel mines but Catharina just says she'll think about it.

Insight: Playing the Black Pits first and importing the characters to Baldur's Gate makes most of the early fights really easy.