DavesGaming

Note: the write-up below will contain spoilers for the fairly recent mod by Acifer “Call of the Lost Goddess”. If you may want to play, you may want to skip this write-up!

The next morning we set out for “The Golden Spires”, a large temple of Waukeen just north of Athkatla. Waukeen is the patron goddess of merchants, and all sorts of trade/business/industry. But significantly, she’s been missing since the Time of Troubles, over a decade ago. I’m not sure how a temple and its clergy continue to function with no deity, but we will get a closer look at it today! We had been asked to check in with the high priest a couple weeks back, when we were in the city.

The outer courts of the temple are quite a marketplace! Not surprising at a temple to “The Lady of Coin”. We however were expected and were quickly ushered into the high priest’s presence. The priest, Tharundar, was a gracious and likable older man. He got quickly to the point, a priestess/prophet at the temple had been having dreams, that led to the conclusion Waukeen was being held captive in the Abyss. They are desperately in need of heroes brave enough and dumb enough [I may have added the last part!] to break her out! Oof. Yeah, we’ll do that. Normal means of gating or planar travel to the Abyss are not acceptable for this, they draw too much attention. But a lesser known means of planar travel, the Infinite Staircase could take us to a fitting destination. This is no small thing, there’s an infinite number of planes, each of infinite size that make up the Abyss. So knowing exactly where we are going is paramount. The temple has already done much of the ground work for this, its like they really want us to go or something! The Infinite Staircase is infinite as far as anyone knows, and provides access to many (but not all) places you can ever imagine. But you know, navigating such an infinite thing requires a lot of information!

The staircase stops at platforms that have gates, and then more stairs often up and down in several directions. We entered the Staircase just a couple days hike (on stairs!) from the gate we wanted. We had some intriguing encounters along the way, but nothing we’d call important until we got to our destination.

The Stair let us out in the Abysmal city of Samora. This is not a vacation spot! It is vile and treacherous. No one there can be trusted. I was a little shocked at the diversity of life and activity going on, everything a dark and twisted version of our own reality might have. Some poor souls are here against their will, but most could be said to belong here for one reason or another. Our team will play the part of ruthless and greedy mercenaries looking to earn a fortune while reveling in destruction. We have a contact in the form of a Nalfeshnee named Margrog (a repulsive type of demon) who will give us information on finding the lost Goddess. Not too willingly it turned out. Some sort of “bargaining” had taken place between Margrog and the priest Tharundar, I shudder to think what sort of price was paid for this mission we’re on. We were forced to perform several menial tasks. Our demon was not happy with us (are they ever?), apparently a human cleric of Cyric the Mad God had followed us and threatened to expose the operation before it even began.
We were finally directed to enter into several pit fights to try and draw the local over-lord’s attention. This was a demon, a succubus named Maretta. She is the only one with access to the imprisoned Goddess, at least locally she is. After a half dozen progressively harder fights this worked. I think we’d cleaned out the coordinator’s stock of beasts.
We were summoned to meet Maretta.

Another demon who wants us to do chores, undoubtedly a sort of vetting process.

We had a few more tasks to tackle, life in the Abyss is repulsive and we were all ready to finish up. Just trying not to rush things and get in over our heads.

We found our way to a former guardian of the Goddess, he’d apparently been “corrupted” by her and was now being tortured to death in a vat of acid. But he provided vital information to get us to Waukeen. If the Abyss is bad, entering an Abysmal prison is worse. I will not write down all the things we saw and did, really apply that to the whole expedition. We did find our way to the Goddess and were able to rescue her.

Words cannot describe how happy I was to see Maretta herself leading an ambush against us as we neared the prison’s exit. That does sound backwards! But I wanted to destroy this evil, I feared we would not know peace with her remaining in the multi-verse. I’m not sure why she thought to lead that war party, succubi are not great warriors. Was she that arrogant? Maybe her bloodlust overwhelmed her sense? As I said before, she outsmarted herself.
After this, we fought our way across the city to the access for the Infinite Staircase. Demons are not naturally very organized, this fighting was mostly random groups and presented no particular difficulty. On leaving the Abyss, Waukeen’s power immediately returned! It was glorious to see.

We returned home from here as quickly as we could. When we got to the temple, Waukeen was showing herself in the form of a shower of gold coins. The high priest was thoughtful enough to ask if we wanted our actions in this known, I declined. But we know we’ll always be welcome here. We stayed long enough to help them find a traitor we’d learned of during our time in the Abyss. Then it was back to our castle.

*****

“Call of the Lost Goddess” is the biggest and most expertly crafted mod I’ve yet seen for the game. It boasts 10 hours of gameplay, I suspect it will go much faster after its been played a few times. But it is disturbing in places. This was my second playthrough of it, and I was considering deleting the thing near the end. I really prefer adventures in the great outdoors. But the end is very satisfying. I will leave it in for a while yet.

A stray thought that may have more to do with how things are shown in AD&D than anything related to BG or this mod in particular. But at a certain point, demonic and devilish things become not very frightening. There was nothing in this adventure to really give me pause. Psyche and her crew can destroy any peril. This doesn’t always match the narrative. I mean, demons should be frightening. Especially a demon lord in their domain. Acifer is wise in not letting us encounter the actual ruler of this realm. I had thought Maretta and a few other demons might be the same sort, but you do get to encounter and destroy a number that you’ve been warned you won’t be able to face.
Some of this really is just D&D, right? Its like the Greater Wolfwere on Balduran’s Island. “He’ll eat the marrow from your bones”. Yeah right. And no doubt dragons always come with much fanfare, even if you can put them down in a single round.
And its all fun, you run the epic heroes who can face any hazard and destroy any foe. Maybe its best not to think too hard on meta-issues when gaming!