Thea: The Awakening, Svarog 1, Final Part

It was time to complete the main quest. 5-skull lairs had appeared so I would have to be prepared. The lairs that appeared were Raiders' Lairs, though, so I could intimidate them away with Social Challenges. Not all baddies were good in both fighting and talking.

5-skull lairs had appeared.

Meanwhile, the Smithy attracted a Wild Boar. The Beast could do Blunt Damage and was supported by a good amount of Damage. It also had high Strength so it could carry a lot of loot.

A Wild Boar was attracted to the village.

The village was attacked by Wailing Wraiths. Without Magic, the village was defenseless. A few of the villagers received a set of two curses. One died. A Totem would have helped resist this attack.

Wailing Wraiths attacked the village.

My main expedition was away on the main quest so they could not bring the cursed villagers to the Dziody for a cure. I hoped that the Rarog would show up again with another egg so I would not have to travel to the Dziody and pay precious food.

I unlocked Rubies and a gathering spot appeared close to the village. Unfortunately, I could not spare the people to form a gatherer expedition to harvest the resource. Since I did not have a Watchtower, I would not have early warnings of dangerous baddie groups.

The village was rotated again.

My main expedition came across a magically hidden chest. Unlike what was found in another game, the chest this time contained a weapon and Topaz.

A weapon and Topaz was in the hidden chest.

As I had hoped, another Rarog visited the village shortly after the attack of the Wailing Wraiths. My villagers were cured of all curses though there was no permanent attribute gain this time. It appeared that followers of Svarog were less dependent on the Dziody for the removal of curses.

The newborn Rarog removed all curses.

As I continued the main quest, I found the Elven Guardian and had a long talk with him about history. I found another spelling mistake.

There is a spelling mistake in this text.

A Hunter joined the village at the same time as the Event of Perun's wrath. A major thunderstorm struck the village, generously distributing Wounds to the villagers. The new Hunter received enough Wounds to send her Health to 0.

The new Hunter was wounded by Perun's wrath.

Fortunately, the Hunter recovered from her Wounds. I had crafted a Snowy Peak that had +4 Medic and equipped it on one of my Craftswomen. That boost to Medic increased the odds of survival for the Hunter.

The Snowy Peak had +4 Medic.

During the main quest, my expedition met the Dragon with the Cosmic Tree Shards. Since my expedition's Magic was not good, I decided to complete this stage of the quest through a Social Challenge. The Dragon was out in front on the first turn and he had been in the offensive stack. Considering the Dragon's Damage, it was likely I would lose someone.

The Dragon was first and ready.

The Dragon had Svarozeks with him, all of them with Clear Mind. Fortunately, most of the Svarozek did not have much Damage so the Piercing given by their Clear Mind was more annoying than damaging.

On the next turn, the Dragon was out first again. This time I had my Svarozek Minion ready in the offensive stack. I could place my Svarozek Minion in front of the Dragon and use Support Ally to boost his Damage enough to talk the Dragon out of the game.

The Dragon was first and ready, again!

After convincing the Dragon to give me the Cosmic Tree Shards, I met with the Orc Matriarch and her tribe. As with Mokosh, only options to reject the Orc Matriarch's proposal were allowed.

It was not possible to consider the Orc Matriarch's proposal.

I finally had enough material to build a good Watchtower. I considered building it with Obsidian to attract Goblins. However, I was planning to end the game soon and would likely not be around long enough for a Goblin to be attracted. Thus, I decided to build the Watchtower with Ancient wood and Mithrill in order to score as much as possible in 'The rarest item' category.

Building a Watchtower for the score.

Continuing on with the main quest, I talked to the Elven Guardian again. There was a similar dialog as the one with the spelling mistake earlier. However, this particular text did not have the spelling mistake.

Repeating the conversation with the Elven Guardian.

At the end of the conversation, the Fat Rat learned to talk some more.

The Fat Rat learned to talk better.

My main expedition moved on towards the final location for the main quest. The location was deep in unexplored territory where there were lots of baddies to slow my people's progress. It was daytime so I had ample warning of the locations of the baddies.

My expedition made their way towards the final quest location.

Before completing the main quest, I took a final look around my village. With the Watchtower complete, I had a good view. Near the Ruby resource, a short distance from my village, were several types of food. I could harvest those food while I mined for Rubies. I had a small expedition of gatherers at the Grain resource.

The orange glowing spots were baddies.

I chose a Social Challenge against the Zmey in the final confrontation. The Zmey had a new image for Challenges rather than the previous one that looked too similar to the Dragon's.

In the Challenge, the Zmey started first and stepped onto the field from the offensive stack. Considering the Zmey's damage potential, I had to sacrifice a Warrior and the Fat Rat while the rest of the expedition dealt with the Zmey's friends. To my amusement, the Fat Rat could speak better than the Warrior.

The Zmey appeared first and in front.

In the second turn, the Zmey moved first and appeared in front again. This time, however, he was from the tactical stack so he was not as dangerous. Unfortunately, my party could not defeat him this turn.

Turn 2 and the Zmey was out first again.

I had the first move in the third turn. I played the Sage first. The Zmey played a card to confuse the Sage and stepped onto the field. That was the last of his tactical cards so it was safe for me to end the threat of the Zmey with my Svarozek Minion and his Piercing speech.

It was time for the Svarozek Minion to deliver the finishing speech.

At the end of the quest, as before, I liked to take a screenshot of the Elf who was late to the party.

The Elf was late again.

I was presented with the score summary. The Watchtower was there as 'The rarest item' with what I hoped was the best score I could get with my resources. The difficulty multiplier of 140% helped boost my final score, which was more than enough to unlock Svarog's first three bonuses.

I had considered continuing the game to unlock Svarog's fourth bonus. However, I had left a lot of baddies with numerous skulls wandering the land. Also, I had chosen a low 'Group Limits' of 12 which would increase the difficulty of tough Challenges. Finally, I wanted to see what Svarog's bonuses were. With these factors in mind, I decided to end the game.

The final score.

I looked at Svarog's bonuses.

The bonuses of Svarog, version 1.11.1312.0.

Svarog's second bonus will be very useful in Social Challenges. It is a bit odd that the action hero of Thea gives bonuses to diplomatic attributes.

The third bonus is bad. I usually pursue baddies close to the village before they attack. Even if I did not, Svarog's shield does not work at night so I still have to deal with the baddies later. This bonus may be useful in a harder game to buy a little extra time to handle tough baddies. In addition, this bonus does support the daytime harvesting strategy. Gatherers can leave the village during the day to harvest resources nearby. And when night falls, the gatherers shall return to protect the village.

The fourth bonus is very useful. Right from the start of the game, I will be able to see clearly around the village. I wish I had continued the game to unlock this bonus.

Thea: The Awakening, Svarog 1, Part 1
Thea: The Awakening, Svarog 1, Part 2

Thea: The Awakening, Contents

Thea: The Awakening, Svarog 1, Part 2

My main expedition was close to the fire demons of the Night of Kupala Event. However, 3-skull opponents were in the way. The reptiles would be easy to handle with a Sickness Challenge. The undead would be a problem as I felt that my expedition was not good enough to attempt a Tactical or Sneak Challenge at 3 skulls.

The Fire Demons were at the question mark on the left.

I avoided the undead lair and met with the fire demons.

Options 1 and 3 were the same?

The fire demons were called Svarozek. A brief chat revealed background information about the creatures. It seemed that the Svarozek had a bone to pick with Svarog.

There is a spelling mistake in the screenshot.

A successful Social Challenge convinced the Svarozek to support Svarog again. The reward was temporary blessings and a small boost to Health for a few people. I had hoped that I would be able to recruit a Svarozek but that did not happen.

Later, a few of the people in the village were afflicted with not one but two curses. A trip to the Dziody was necessary to remove the curses. It appeared that the Dziody had increased their fee. If I remember correctly, it was 30 food for each curse in a previous game version.

With the new price, I had to pay 50 food.

With the new price, I had to pay 50 food for each of the two curses. 100 food was precious since I was having trouble gathering food in the current game.

Shortly after the meeting with the Dziody, I had an Event that was related to Svarog. A fiery falcon, which I later found out was called a Rarog, gave the village an egg.

A fiery falcon gave an egg.

While the option to make scrambled eggs was tempting because of the food problem, I was curious to know if I could recruit something weird. I attempted an Intellect Challenge to figure out what to do with the egg.

After figuring out how to hatch the egg, a new Rarog was born. The Rarog healed the villagers of all curses. That would have been helpful before I spent my precious food on two cures!

Fortunately, one of the villagers was blessed with a permanent +1 Shielding while others were blessed with temporary Strength. Otherwise, I would be dreaming of scrambled eggs.

The newborn Rarog blessed the villagers.

The Vavel Dragon appeared. I knew it would be a good Event to get some Dragon-related material and recruit a Sage. The Sage involved was a little senile or something since he asked for the resources he sent for after I gave them to him.

He asked for the resources after they were given.

Since the plan to recruit Elves was canceled, I attempted to recruit Beasts instead. I decided to build a Smithy of Monster bones and Sandstone. Monster bones were easily collected from wandering undead. Sandstone was hardly used in crafting so it accumulated.

A Smithy of Monster bones and Sandstone to attract Beasts.

I had two Graveyard Events. In each Event, there were Strigas locked up in a crypt. The Sage I recruited from the Vavel Dragon Event had high Folklore. With him, the expedition would notice the warning about the Strigas within, allowing the option to choose an easier fight. Otherwise, the expedition would face a difficult 4-skull fight.

Folklore was needed for the Graveyard Event.

Since I selected Gatherers as the Village Focus, I did not have a Medic at the beginning. After a long time, I finally had a child grow up with the option to be one.

I finally had a Medic.

At the first part of the Divine Quest, I learned more about Svarog from the dead university scholars. It appeared that he was the action hero of Thea. The text mentioned 'Thunder Gods', which made me wonder if Svarog was considered a 'Thunder God' since he was related to Perun, who was definitely the Thunder God. A more likely explanation is that it was a spelling mistake.

Were there more than one Thunder God?

When it came time to deliver my judgement on the scholars, I chose to uphold the original punishment. My party members were each blessed with Will as a result. Despite the number of skulls next to the option I chose, there was no mini-game Challenge.

Comparing this with the other choice I made with Mokosh made me wonder if each of the possible judgement would give a different blessing. The text of the options available were huge clues as to the appropriate response for the deity chosen as patron.

Upholding judgement resulted in blessing of Will for the villagers.

The next step of the Divine Quest was to convince Svarog that the villagers were worthy to do his quest. Since Svarog was the action hero, I chose to convince the deity through combat.

The missing word is still missing in this wall of text.

The Fight Challenge was more difficult compared to the Social Challenge since the Avatar Guardians with Svarog were good fighters. Fortunately, I had crafted Dragon's Banes. Two of these mighty 2-handed Axes were with the expedition.

Both Dragon's Banes were with the tactical stack.

Svarog was happy that the combat option was chosen. He sent the villagers to build a shrine for him. From his instructions, I guessed that a huge amount of Gold was necessary. A few of the villagers had suffered critical wounds during the fight. Svarog was gracious enough to heal everyone. He even healed the Wounds that a villager had before entering the Challenge.

Svarog the action hero assigned a construction quest.

Svarog directed the party to a Zmey who had the required Gold. By the power of Svarog, an additional method was available to defeat the Zmey: wrestling.

The Zmey's image looked like it was modified from the Dragon's image.

After wrestling the Zmey, the villagers were blessed with enough strength to complete the shrine within hours. I chose the option to increase Svarog's power and make him the Supreme Deity. A Svarozek Minion joined my party at the end of the quest.

I had small hope that with the amount of Gold used, I would get lots of Research Points. However, I received only the standard amount of Research Points for completing the quest.

A Svarozek Minion joined the party.

The Svarozek Minion could not equip anything at all. In addition, he had low Strength so he did not contribute much to the party's load limitations. He had Clear Mind, which gave Piercing in Social and Tactical Challenges. However, his low Speech reduced the effectiveness of Piercing in Social Challenges. He had Magic, which was helpful and his Leech was high enough to be useful. Also, he had a high Traps attribute.

The attributes of the Svarozek Minion.

Having completed the Divine Quest, it was time to complete the main quest and end the game.

Thea: The Awakening, Svarog 1, Part 1
Thea: The Awakening, Svarog 1, Final Part

Thea: The Awakening, Contents

Thea: The Awakening, Svarog 1, Part 1

I have started a new game of Thea: The Awakening with Svarog as the chosen deity. I planned to play a speed-run to develop the god. My game had been updated to version 1.11.1312.0. The screenshots below are taken from that version.

The bonuses of Svarog, version 1.11.1312.0.

As usual, I picked Gatherers as the Village Focus. I had only Svarog's first bonus. I think the bonus reduces the experience required for villagers to gain new attributes by 10%.

As I was choosing a new deity, I picked the same difficulty settings as my first game with Mokosh, with one exception. I set the Group Limit to 12 for the extra score multiplier. This meant that during each challenge, only a maximum of 12 characters would participate on each turn. As I was planning to play a speed-run, it was likely that I would complete the game before my expedition size grew over 12.

The custom difficulty settings.

At the start of the game, I considered the resources around my village.

Resources available around the village.

It was bad.

There were no resources to gather at all within the village. It was fortunate that there was Wood in the next hex so fuel would not be a problem. However, the only food available was the Exotic Fruit in another adjacent hex. Exotic Fruit required a lot of work to collect for a small yield. This meant that my village would collect food at a lower rate. Hopefully, it would not be too low. It was for situations such as this that Mokosh's third bonus would be helpful.

Exotic Fruit required a lot of work for a small amount.

On the plus side, Grain could be harvested near the village. Grain was useful in a number of recipes, especially in Baked Meals. Also, Pastures and Cabbage Fields constructed with Grain had the best Attract Humans attribute of all the food.

Starting resources available.

I checked the resources available at the start. I had 2 Children. Gold, Vines, Wicker and Dark wood would be useful to craft early tools. Granite was most useful for constructing buildings. However, I would need a lot more than the 5 I had.

Exploring a little further from the village revealed that there was a good variety of food nearby.

There was a good variety of food close to the village.

I had an early encounter with a Skshack. A food offering of 20 (a big number at this early stage of the game) to the creature gave a permanent +1 Gathering to all the people in the village. This would make my people more productive while gathering Exotic Fruit.

The Skshack blessed villagers with +1 Gathering.

Food must be secured for the village. With that in mind, my expedition camped to gather food. While I was passing the turns, the village was attacked by a Witch.

The Witch and her four Hulking Rats were tough to handle this early.

My ill-equipped village of four people somehow managed to defeat the Witch. Three of the villagers were critically wounded.

The villagers were injured badly.

It was fortunate that all the villagers later recovered from their wounds.

I met with an odd Event that I had never encountered before. It was a meeting with a Treasureboy. I could not get anything useful out of it, though. I wonder if this Event was related to Svarog since the Treasureboy's description had some similarity to Svarog's golden glory.

The Treasureboy Event.

In order to execute my new strategy of recruiting Elves, I unlocked Elven wood. Unfortunately, the resource spot for Elven Wood appeared very far from the village. That scraped the plan.

Elven wood appeared deep in unexplored territory.

I needed a variety of food for the bonuses they gave. It would be turn 35 before I felt that I had gathered enough food that my main expedition could go exploring.

Having more types of food gave more bonuses.

My village had been robbed of some precious resources by bandits. I had faced this Event before so I knew it was worth pursuing. Also, I had read online that the Event had been fixed so it properly gave the rewards.

Bandits raided the village.

After I checked the first location of the Main Quest, the tower of the university scholar appeared next to the village again. This was the third time in three separate games, though this time the tower was in a different direction relative to the village. The scholar really was spying on the village in his magically hidden tower.

In addition, it appeared that the villagers had rotated the village again.

Perhaps the scholar was studying the phenomenon of the rotating village.

I had the Night of Kupala Event. Since I was playing with Svarog, I chose the option with the most fire involved.

Night of Kupala Event.

As it turned out, making and playing with a large bonfire really was related to Svarog. I was sent to find a group of fire demons. As the fire demons appeared far to the west, across a very large lake, it would be some time before I could search for them.

Meanwhile, four of my villagers gained attributes both temporary and permanent.

The next stage of the Event involved finding a group of fire demons.

To prepare for a long journey to find the fire demons, I needed more people in my main expedition. Thus, I looked for the bandits that robbed my village earlier.

I received proper a reward this time.

As in Morena's game, I chose to intimidate the bandits into leaving the area. With the no-reward bug fixed, this time I received two Axes and some Malachite. In addition, the Fat Rat was back. It appeared that having one party member with an Animal Kinship of 2 was enough to recruit the beast.

The attributes of the Fat Rat.

Without Morena's bonuses (or any of Svarog's), the Fat Rat had hardly any attributes - only those suitable for Fight challenges. Still, he (it was already hinted that the Fat Rat was male) was an additional expedition member and he could carry loot.

Meanwhile, Svarog dropped by to drop his hammer:

Is he cutting his thumb with a broken sword?

I met with a group of nomads and traded them a weapon. At this early stage of the game, I had weak weapons and any good material was valuable. The nomads did not trade anything dragon-related unlike a previous occurrence.

A weapon was traded for resources.

In the Smithy quest, I convinced Orcs to part with the Children under their care (they were not the Orcs'). The Fat Rat learned to talk as a result.

The Fat Rat learned to talk.

On the way back to the Rusalka with the Children, one of them grew up. Thus, the option to hand over the children did not appear. It was then that I discovered another way to complete the quest. The Red Ribbon that the Orcs gave me unlocked an alternate solution. The solution required more smooth talk but I would get the final reward and keep the Children.

Do not anger the Rusalka without any Red Ribbon at hand.

I fought against a Necromancer who had been sealed within a tower. The battle was difficult but I was not about to let someone as dangerous as him loose on Thea. He had some good resources and books, which gave some permanent attributes to a few party members. Unfortunately, most of the expedition were critically wounded during the fight.

The Necromancer had loot.

Most of the wounded would eventually recover. One of the Warriors, however, did not. Since it was still early in the game and she was not a rare character, the lost was not so great though she was one of the people who was blessed by the Night of Kupala Event.

A Warrior died.

I had yet to search for the fire demons for the Night of Kupala Event or even make my way in the correct direction. I hoped to do so soon or this speed-run would take longer than expected.

Thea: The Awakening, Svarog 1, Part 2
Thea: The Awakening, Svarog 1, Final Part

Thea: The Awakening, Contents