Thea: The Awakening, Mokosh 1, Part 1

I started a new game of Thea: The Awakening. Having braved a number of Mokosh-related earthquakes in separate games, I wondered what would happen if I had encountered that Event with that goddess as the patron deity. Thus, I chose Mokosh as the deity.

This game was played on version 1.10.1224.0. The screenshots are also from that same version.

The bonuses of Mokosh, version 1.10.1224.0.

I decided to go with my favorite Gatherers for the Village Focus.

The custom difficulty settings.

For the custom difficulty settings, I picked Normal for the World Size so the Quest locations and resources would (hopefully) be close. I picked 10 as the starting number of villagers since I had only Mokosh's first bonus, which I later discovered that it lowers the work necessary for gathering resources by 10%. As I do not use Reshuffles, I switched it off. I kept the other difficulty settings at Normal, though I set Challenges Difficulty to Experienced so I would have a score multiplier of 100%.

At the start of the game, I looked at the resources available around my village.

Resources available for the village to gather.

It was good that there were Fruits nearby because the Herbs in the village could not be eaten directly though they could be used for cooking. There was, however, a lack of protein sources. I would have to build Pastures for Meat.

Resources in the village.

There was not much in the village. Dryad wood and two Children were notable, along with the precious source of protein, Meat. The nearby expedition had some Gold and more Meat.

I renamed the expedition later.

After some time exploring the area around the village, I found that there really was a lack of protein sources. Ironically, the followers of Mokosh, the Mother Earth, were having a problem with food. Or was Mokosh a vegetarian?

The nearby body of water did not have Fish or Seaweed.

I used my precious Gold and Dryad wood to craft tools so my Craftswoman could make things faster. In addition, I needed the Research Points.

Making golden tools.

Having been unsuccessful in attracting Goblins in my previous game, I decided to try attracting Elves instead. I unlocked Elven wood. A source for Elven wood appeared close to the village.

Elven wood was spotted close to the village.

The Craftsman in my expedition was critically injured during the time I unlocked Elven wood. Despite the lack of a Medic, it was fortunate that he survived. I later assigned a Medic, who had grown from a Child, from the village to the expedition.

I built a Watchtower of Elven wood so I could watch for danger around my village and attract Elves. With Attract Elven of only 1, the chance of attracting one was slim but I might just get lucky. At this early stage of the game, the 22 Research Points that I would get from building the Watchtower was worth a lot.

A Watchtower of Elven wood to attract Elves.

Mokosh showed up to introduce her Divine Quest.

Mokosh assigned homework.

The reward for the Divine Quest would likely be a powerful ally, who would be useful. However, I felt that my people were not experienced enough to deal with it yet, especially with that Intelligence test at the start. There were not many people among my villagers who had good Intelligence. For some reason, the Witches that I had each had low Intelligence, which made me wonder if Intelligence was not a class-attribute for Witches.

The Witches, however, had Magic. One of them, with the help of a piece of equipment that increased Magic, was useful in an Event involving a chest with a protective spell. The content of the chest was... odd.

How long was the kid in there?

My village faced the Hangedman Quest, which was different in the Early Access version. First, in the Early Access version, the quest was shoved onto me early in each game. I did not encounter the quest at all during my last game. Second, the quest progression and the ending were different. I wonder if the original ending was still there. It would be cool if the game would randomly choose a branch for the quest each time I encountered it.

However, the additions to the Hangedman Quest also added a spelling mistake.

There is a spelling mistake in the screenshot.

There was still no sign of any Elf and I needed more villagers. So I made a Smithy with Monster Bones to attract Beasts. I had quite a few Monster Bones collected from wandering undead. However, I lacked resources for the Secondary Material. The only other resource I had was Dark wood, which increased the Production Points required to construct the building and the Research Points awarded. Using Dark wood would not increase any of the properties compared to ordinary Wood. There was not even enough Dark wood to attract Goblins. Thus, I decided on Wood for the Secondary Material and save the Dark wood to craft other items for Research Points.

Building a Smithy with Monster Bones.

A 4-skull group of undead suddenly appeared and attacked a small expedition that I had gathering food, near my village, in daylight! Fortunately, the expedition was close to the village so they limped back within a turn.

The main expedition watched the 4-skull baddie.

Unfortunately, two of the expedition members died the next turn. Because the survivors took heavy damage from the encounter with the undead, one of them recovered to only 1 HP while the other remained at 0. At the same time, one of the Children grew up with Medic as a choice for her career. That Medic would have been helpful one turn earlier.

A child grew to be a Medic.

The next turn after that, another Child grew to be a Medic, with the same image and a slightly different name. Could the two Medics be twins?

Medic twins in the village.

The probability of Children growing is higher with a smaller number of villagers. Thus, losing two villagers had increased the chance of two Children growing up to replace them. The other members of the expedition that was attacked would eventually recover from their Wounds.

Later, I gathered reinforcements from the village with the main expedition and defeated the 4-skull baddie in a Sneak challenge.

I had unlocked Dryad wood near the village. Harvesting the resource would not be easy. The resource was west of the village, a direction that I had not cleared of baddies. I was concerned if any gatherers who camped there would be attacked, especially after the incident with the 4-skull baddie earlier. My main expedition was busy with quests to the north-east of the village. In addition, the Main Quest and the Divine Quest locations were both to the east.

To reinforce my concern, a 3-skull group of baddies, an Abominable Army, appeared from the west.

Dryad wood on the left of the screenshot, 3-skull baddie highlighted on the top.

When more Children grew up and I had collected more equipment, I fielded a larger and better-equipped gathering party to gather the Dryad wood.

Turns passed and I unlocked Dragon leather. A Dragon leather gathering spot appeared close to the village, towards the east where my main expedition had recently cleared of baddies. Though it would be safe to gather Dragon leather, there was no other resource of value to gather other than the ordinary Wood and the abundantly available but useless Bones.

Dragon leather appeared near the village.

My main expedition was growing well in experience. It was time to pursue the Divine Quest to discover what ally Mokosh would give me. Then it would be time to do the Main Quest and complete the game. Details of my game will be continued in the next article.

Thea: The Awakening, Mokosh 1, Final Part

Thea: The Awakening, Contents