Another Icewind Dale run comes to an end. Victoria and her crew won through in record time at a heroic pace. No reloads were required for any of the big battles in the later part of the game or its expansions, making this almost an unintentional no-reload run (A few reloads earlier on, normal sort of stuff especially with a low level party that has fewer resources).

What this means for the team is first of all, a return home to Waterdeep. There were no big parades or celebrations for them, few people even knew anything had happened in the far off North. Of course they were all individually quite powerful now, and had staggering wealth. Even if much of it was invested in rebuilding ruined Easthaven. Pyrite and Geoffry both returned to their businesses. Werner got involved in local politics.
Victoria found a renewed passion for training Warriors from the devout of Tyr. John consulted on security work, but not full time. Julya was somewhat adrift, not fitting in at the temple she would be the most adventurous of the team.

They all did adventure together some, although Geoffry and Werner less often than the others being most committed to home base activities. The Hastings in particular adventured a fair amount, often with Julya exploring and seeking out peril before calling in the gang. The three of them plus Pyrite, and a young man who eventually became Julya’s spouse became quite well known as heroes and adventurers. And in time, word did trickle out of how great their adventures in the North had been.

Victoria remained diligent about seeking out Undead to destroy.
On the one-year anniversary of their return home, Victoria and John received this painting as a gift from grateful citizenry of the Ten Towns, commemorating their entry into Kuldahar Pass. Victoria laughed, “Gee sweetie, you never told me you were an elf…”

8 responses to “Victoria: Update 6”

  1. Zeno Avatar

    Wow. That was fast! My favorites of those pics are probably John and the Myconids – just because I imagine getting decent mushroom men out of the AI took some doing. And the last one of John and Victoria – because it looks almost exactly like a Larry Elmore book cover. “Dragons of the North” or some-such.

    I haven’t even gotten around to deciding what I’m going to do next.

    Liked by 1 person

    1. atcDave Avatar
      atcDave

      it’s largely out-takes! The ones of Victoria are from the Hand, the Myconids I was working on for Upper Dorn’s Deep, and the last one I was trying to do back at the beginning. They were all rejects for one reason or another, but I loved them! So they show up here.

      the Myconids are really colorful. The one of Julya is the only one done just for this post.

      I have a huge new BG run I’ve been working on for weeks, will probably be up in a few hours. I’m really excited about it.

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      1. Zeno Avatar

        I know what you mean. I’ve had plenty of pics that were technically “rejects” for one reason or another that I kept anyway because they did something so *right* that it made up for the defect(s). Like the one where Keira was fighting a Balrog that clearly grabbed an awful lot of Kord’s description, but Keira’s stance was so awesome that I left it in anyway.

        As in you’re getting ready to start a new BG run? Sounds fun! Looking forward to seeing what’s coming next!

        I have no earthly idea what I’m doing next. Lots of “maybe” ideas. Wish there were more games that supported these folks. Seriously – 35 years of PC gaming boil down to 5-10 games that meaningfully “scratch the itch”. And the number that properly support any given party of mine in party size and story context is more like 2-3. But I’ll have time to think about it at the beach the next few weeks.

        Liked by 1 person

      2. atcDave Avatar
        atcDave

        Yeah and the number that scratch the itch keeps shrinking! I tried to revisit Pool of Radiance a couple years back and I just couldn’t do it.

        At this point, I’m thinking three more runs of each then something else for a while. The next one should be quite big for the AI art!

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      3. Zeno Avatar

        I occasionally get to add one. Solasta made it to the list. Kingmaker might. I had high hopes for an IWD-in-the-TOEE-engine mod a while back, but that appears to have petered out without getting very far. But yeah. I keep trying to pull out the old Gold Boxes and recapture that magic, but it just doesn’t work any more. I can’t do it. Which is a shame, because I played those suckers to death back in the day. C’est la vie.

        I really wish I could stomach NWN/NWN2 better. So many good user-modules for those. But man do I hate the engine(s). NWN2-SoZ seems tailor made for someone like Victor. But yuck. The GUI.

        Liked by 1 person

      4. atcDave Avatar
        atcDave

        Yeah I agree with most of that!
        I’ve liked Fantasy General II, but you can’t really design your own character, which is limiting. The game play is excellent though.

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      5. Zeno Avatar

        Yeah. Branching out to other game styles opens it up a bit. I used to pull out the old “Fall-from-Heaven” mod for Civ..4?? over and over again. Like Fantasy General you can’t really make your own characters, but that was such an awesome flavorful fantasy offshoot of Civ. Where every CIV had completely different goals and fundamentally different (and often conflicting) playstyles and incentives.

        Liked by 1 person

      6. atcDave Avatar
        atcDave

        Civilization is another I’ve spent a lot of time with! But yeah, totally different thing.

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