Thea: The Awakening, Horos 3, Part 2

When I started on Horos's Divine Quest, I noticed that the first quest location was represented by a few tents surrounded by a flimsy palisade. I wondered if the quest location would be different from the university ruins that was the first site in previous games.

The first quest location of Horos's Divine Quest.

When I visited the location, I found that it was still the university ruins. Where did the tents, palisade and fireplace come from?

Anyway, after carefully reading the options available when it came time to pronounce judgement on the university scholars, I went with the 'not our problem' answer and left with the temporary 'Bless of Will' for the expedition members. There was no Challenge to resolve despite the three skulls beside the option.

The possible options for judgement.

I was lucky when I crafted a Silky Vest with Malachite. The vest came with 2 Magic. I gave it to my Sage who then had a total of 7 Magic. That would help in Hex challenges.

A Silky Vest with Magic.

My expedition was attacked by three Poludnicas and a Giant Crow. The lead Poludnica could deal a lot of damage and each of the trio had Leech. They did not have much Armour though, so they could be defeated with a combination of heavy damage and First Action.

The first Poludnica had high Damage.

My main expedition came across a black cat. Curious as to what might happen, I continued on and was blessed with temporary Dexterity.

A random encounter with a black cat.

With Warriors as my Village Focus, I had been exploring the land, raiding lairs and searching ruins. Since I had Horos's third bonus, which gave normal vision at night, I could continue my exploration in the darkness.

I found an area with several ruins close. It was a good opportunity to look for loot.

Several ruins were found close together.

I completed the Goblin Village's quest and could then trade with the Goblins. The option to exchange armor for rare trophies interested me.

The possible trade offers at the Goblin Village.

From a few trades, I determined that the best armor and/or shields would be taken. In return, I had received Scaled leather, Dragon leather, Dragon bones and Enchanted bones. The logbook recorded all the transactions so I could review them later.

The logbook recorded all trades with the Goblin Village.

The Goblin Village was a place where I could exchange junk armor and shields for good resources. I could craft Fur Coats with the less useful Fur leather and Amber for trade. Crafting Fur Coats also advanced my research. Later, I should craft something out of the useless Bones.

Crafting Fur Coats.

I think it was a bug, but each time I visited the Goblin Village, I could collect again the reward for the quest the village gave me earlier. The next time I loaded the game, I discovered that the Goblin Village had rotated just like my village.

Much later, after more trades, I would discover that certain jewelry and artifacts were also accepted. I think that any item with the Armour attribute would be accepted.

I found a trapped Skshack. After releasing the creature, it gave me a quest. It asked me to free its mistress. A house appeared on the map, which I would visit later.

A Skshack gave a quest.

In the meantime, I used the Dragon bones from the Goblin Village to build a Smithy. It was more for the Attract Demon than the Crafting Bonus. Also, it met the requirement for one of the three Grand Buildings for the Advancement Victory.

Building a Smithy with Dragon bone and Gold.

My expedition went to the house that the Skshack (or rather its map) showed. It turned out that the Skshack's mistress had turned into a Baba Yaga. There was the option of simply fighting the Baba Yaga, which would only be a temporary solution. The Skshack wanted its mistress freed, which would require the other option, a 4-skull Hex Challenge.

I failed at the Hex challenge and according to the text, I would lose a few Children. Since I had no Children in the village, I did not suffer that consequence. However, every member of the expedition was inflicted with the 'Cursed' attribute and I had to go to the Dziody to have those curses removed. The house was still there so I could (hopefully) attempt the Challenge again later.

I hoped that the failure would increase my 'Events taken part in' score since it was an additional route. Exploring different routes in an Event would each separately increase the score.

Strong Magic was required to free the Baba Yaga.

I had gathered enough Obsidian from ruins and Events to construct a building with the Attract Goblin attribute. With lots of Dragon bone left over, I decided to make another Smithy.

Building another Smithy, this time with Dragon bone and Obsidian.

A bunch of undead suddenly showed up and attacked my village. It appeared that they came from the Graveyard of the Graveyard Event right next to my village. Uncomfortable with a baddie spawn point as a neighbor, I would have to deal with it. At that time, my main expedition was away, on the visit to the Dziody.

It was during that fight with the undead that I realized that the Baba Yaga's curse extended to all my villagers everywhere! My ill-equipped villagers, already outmatched, were weakened even further. I lost the fight but, to my relief, the game did not end. My expedition of gatherers were on their way back so they reinforced the village for the next attack.

My village was badly outmatched.

In hindsight, I should have just initiated a Sneak Challenge to beat those undead. Some time later, I cleared the Graveyard and its Striga denizens. After that, I sent the remaining villagers to the Dziody to have their curses removed.

My main expedition came across a dried up log. It was a dying Leshy who had a final wish.

The Dying Leshy's Wish Quest.

The Leshy wanted its ash scattered onto a fertile ground, at a location that was not far away. It just happened to be close to a 4-skull Goblins Army that I had forgotten about. My people were not powerful enough to destroy the lair. Instead, I had to regularly visit the area and clear any baddies spawned.

I wish Horos's third bonus also increased the brightness at night.

After clearing the surrounding area of 4-skull baddies, my main expedition visited the quest location, which had a single weeping willow. The Leshy's ash was spread below the tree. A forest would one day grow in the location... which was on snowy terrain as shown in the screenshot above.

A couple of my villagers were blessed with a variety of good attributes. Oddly enough, both villagers were not with the main expedition. Instead, the expedition members gained temporary boosts to Health.

Completing the Dying Leshy's Wish Quest.

I unlocked Moonstone, the rare resource. It appeared near the northern edge of the map. Though I had partially scouted the location, it would be dangerous to send gatherers there without adequate protection.

Moonstone appeared far to the north.

I might have wasted the Advancement Points used to unlock Moonstone (and the resources before that). Perhaps it would have been better if I had collected resources from baddies, ruins and Events, especially since I was aggressively exploring the land.

It was time to attempt the Divine Quest and hopefully recruit someone (or something) that could help with the Baba Yaga's House. In the Early Access version of Thea: The Awakening, I had received a Striga Master.

Thea: The Awakening, Horos 3, Part 1
Thea: The Awakening, Horos 3, Part 3
Thea: The Awakening, Horos 3, Final Part

Thea: The Awakening, Contents

Thea: The Awakening, Horos 3, Part 1

I started a new game of Thea: The Awakening with Horos as my chosen deity. With his nighttime bonuses, I would adopt an aggressive strategy of actively hunting down baddies. I needed 720 XP to unlock Horos's final bonus. In the last game with Svarog, I had a score of 663 when I completed the main quest (after the application of a 140% score multiplier). With this in mind, I would have to play a little more after completing the main quest in order to gather the 720 XP.

There had not been an update so the game in this article was played on version 1.11.1312.0.

The bonuses of Horos, version 1.11.1312.0.

What I really wanted to try was Horos's third bonus. Normally, it would not be possible to see far at night. Horos's bonus negated this weakness so my expeditions could remain active at night since I could see where I was sending them. Horos's first bonus helped with combat at night while the second bonus granted Stealth, which allowed villagers to use First Attack in Fight Challenges. Stealth was also useful in Sneak Challenges. The last bonus, if I had it, would allow my expeditions to travel fast.

I wondered what sort of creature was the Nightstalker that I would get from Horos's fourth bonus.

The custom difficulty settings.

I chose Warriors as the Village Focus since I planned to play aggressively. I chose Huge as the World Size so I had space to explore.

I set the Enemy Aggressiveness to High so I would not waste time hunting down weak baddies at night. Instead, I would move my expedition close to the baddies hoping that they would come at me and thus save me the Movement Points needed to attack them. This was the passive-aggressive tactic.

Since I had Horos's first four bonuses, I thought I could manage with Starting Villagers set to 9 instead of the usual 10. I set the Group Limits to 16 for the added difficulty. From experience, I knew that 12 was sufficient to complete the main quest. Since I intended to play more after the completion of the main quest, it was likely that my expedition size would grow beyond 12. In Morena's game, I had expeditions the size of 13 in the late game.

At the start of the game, I looked at the resources around my village. Part of the village was in the water. It would have looked cool if there were buildings on stilts over the water.

Part of the village was in the water.

I had Fish so I would not have a protein problem as I did in Mokosh's game. However, the only edible plant nearby was the Exotic Fruit. Hopefully, I would find some place where other plants could be harvested.

Next, I looked at the resources I had.

Resources available at the start.

Since I chose Warriors as the Village Focus, I had a Medic. I had two Warhammers - I was not sure if those came with the Warriors I picked. I noted that I did not have the resources to craft tools.

I took a look at the Nightstalker, who appeared to be a Goblin. This was different from the Goblin Shaman I had started with in the game with Horos in the Early Access version.

The attributes of the Nightstalker.

The Nightstalker had similar attributes to the Hunter with Animal Kinship, Gathering, Stealth and decent combat skills. He had Poison instead of Traps and he did not have Ranged Damage. These factors made the Nightstalker more suited to direct combat. Interestingly, he had a point in Sixth Sense.

Since I had a Goblin, I thought I would attract more with Dark wood and unlocked that resource with research. Unfortunately, its gathering spot appeared far from the village.

Dark wood appeared within unexplored territory.

Since I started with Warriors, I needed Gatherers. Thus, when a Child grew up, I chose Gatherer as her class.

A Child grew to be a Gatherer.

Because I picked Warriors and would get into fights more often, my expedition members were in frequent danger of being wounded. After one such fight, I had two critically wounded people at death's door. As I prepared to camp, I met with the lost Goddess.

A grammar mistake made a sentence sound weird.

The lost Goddess would be able to heal the wounded. This early in the game, I did not have the Magic to counter the possibility of a curse. Nevertheless, I decided to accept the curse rather than risk death.

Critically wounded people were healed and cursed.

My critically wounded people were both healed and cursed. I had other injured villagers but they were not healed (and thus, not cursed). Dziody had not yet appeared this early in the game so I could not remove the Deforming Curses. Fortunately, those curses only reduced Attractiveness and my villagers were not afflicted with 'Cursed', which gave permanent Wounds.

As I explored a little further from the village, I found a spot where four varieties of plant-based food could be gathered. I would have to put together a party of gatherers since my main party had mainly Warriors. The Grain would be helpful in constructing buildings with Attract Human.

Plant-based food (at the top left of the screenshot) near the village (bottom right).

My expedition met with a bunch of Hohlicks who wanted to play hide and seek. The reward was some String and sickness for a couple of villagers. At least it was a weak sickness that would wear off in time.

I also received the usual XP reward.

Still hoping to attract Goblins, I unlocked Obsidian. That too appeared in unexplored territory far from my village. On the plus side, I could unlock Moonstone, a valuable resource, next.

The gathering spot for Obsidian appeared in unexplored territory.

As if to taunt my struggles with attracting Goblins, the Goblin Village appeared close to my village. I might try trading with them later, after I had completed their quest.

The Goblin Village was close to my village.

The Dziody appeared to announce their location. They also cured my villagers of their curses.

The Dziody appeared.

It was good that the Dziody removed my curses because their home was right across the lake. Though they were physically near, it would be a long travel around the lake to visit them since there was no canoe technology in Thea. Horos's final bonus would have been very helpful.

To my annoyance, the Herbalist Hut appeared next to the Dziody. I hoped that no one would be poisoned.

The Dziody and the Herbalist Hut were across the lake.

I started the main quest. Out of curiosity, I wondered what would happen if I were to discard the scroll at the start of the quest. (I had saved the game before that, just in case.) As it turned out, I could not get rid of the scroll.

One could not throw the scroll away.

Unlike previous games, the tower of the university scholar in the main quest did not appear next to the village.

The tower appeared across another lake.

I visited the tower. Since Horos was the Lord of the Night, I wondered what he would think about bringing permanent darkness across the land by supporting the plan of the university scholar. However, Horos was also the master of the night creatures who depended on the magic that would be extinguished if the scholar's plan succeeded. Horos appeared to care more about those creatures than permanent darkness.

It was not possible to support the university scholar's proposal.

Despite having only 6 to Attract Human from two buildings built with Grain, I had attracted a Bandit named Natasha. Curiously, Natasha had Magic and Folklore.

The Bandit had Magic.

As it turned out, Natasha gained Magic and Folklore from her equipment, which were of good quality. The Bandit was level 7, the highest of all my villagers.

The Bandit had a Runic Bone Jacket.

With my Warriors, I collected a good quantity of Granite from exploring ruins and lots of Spidersilk from hunting spiders. I used those to begin construction on a Well. Unfortunately, the cost of the Well did not reach the 1230 Production Points required to be considered a Grand Building for the Advancement Victory.

Building the best Well.

It would take some time to complete the Well and gain its benefits.

Thea: The Awakening, Horos 3, Part 2
Thea: The Awakening, Horos 3, Part 3
Thea: The Awakening, Horos 3, Final Part

Thea: The Awakening, Contents

Thea: The Awakening, Contents

Thea: The Awakening by MuHa Games is a turn-based strategy game. The player leads a village, sending out people to explore the land (and look for trouble), gather resources and fight baddies. Back at the village, food and equipment may be crafted from the resources gathered in order to give advantages to handle more difficult encounters. With many random Events possible, each game is a different adventure.

Listed below are the articles I wrote based on my experience with the game. The version numbers of Thea are listed, followed by the game names, links to the articles and notes. The game changes a lot between the versions. The most notable difference is that the Early Access version have different bonuses for the deities compared to the Release version.

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Early Access Version

0.1003.0
Lada 1
Thea: The Awakening, Lada 1
The Cropping: Vily, Dwarf Bandit, Attract Goblin, Late Forest Elf Druid.

0.1008.1
Veles 1
Thea: The Awakening, Veles 1
Craftsmen Village Focus, The Cropping, Wandering Elf Event, Poludnica Event, Late Forest Elf Druid.

0.1014.2
Horos 2
There is no Horos 1 article.
Thea: The Awakening, Horos 2
Black ground bug, Goblin Shaman at start, Gatherers Village Focus, Attract Goblin, Striga Master Event, Poludnica Event, Late Forest Elf Druid.

0.1021.0
Morena 1
Thea: The Awakening, Morena 1
Gatherers Village Focus, Harvest Moon, Attract Goblin, The Cropping, Poisoned Village Well Event (x4), Herbalist Hut, Liho.

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Release Version


1.6.1201
Morena 2, the one with the Fat Rat.
Thea: The Awakening, Morena 2, Part 1
Poisoned Village Well Event, Bandits Event, Fat Rat, Trading with Nomads, Elf and Orc Love Story Quest.
Thea: The Awakening, Morena 2, Part 2
Fat Rat, Icy Princess, Poisoned Village Well Event, Morena's Divine Quest, Attract Beast, Looting Orcs Event, Striga Mistress Event, Poludnica Event.
Thea: The Awakening, Morena 2, Part 3
Fall into Ground Event, Enchanted bone, Enchanted bone full Equip, Looting Orcs Event, Fat Rat.
Thea: The Awakening, Morena 2, Final Part
Poludnica Event, Attract Beast, Black Mist Event, Attract Demon, Wandering Elf Event, Poisoned Village Well Event, Fat Rat, Morena's Bonuses.

1.10.1224.0
Mokosh 1
Thea: The Awakening, Mokosh 1, Part 1
Gatherers Village Focus, Hidden Chest Event, Hangedman Quest.
Thea: The Awakening, Mokosh 1, Final Part
Mokosh's Divine Quest, Cosmic Tree Quest, Late Forest Elf Druid.

1.11.1312.0
Svarog 1, the one with the food problem.
Thea: The Awakening, Svarog 1, Part 1
Gatherers Village Focus, Low Food, Skshach Event, Treasureboy Event, Bandits Event, Night of Kupala Event: Bonfire and Svarog, Trading with Nomads, Smithy Quest, Sealed Necromancer Event.
Thea: The Awakening, Svarog 1, Part 2
Night of Kupala Event, Dziody, Rarog Event, Vavel Dragon Quest, Graveyard Event, Svarog's Divine Quest.
Thea: The Awakening, Svarog 1, Final Part
Attract Beast, Wailing Wraiths Event, Hidden Chest Event, Rarog Event, Cosmic Tree Quest, Late Forest Elf Druid.

Horos 3, the one with the impassable water.
Thea: The Awakening, Horos 3, Part 1
Horos's Bonuses, Warriors Village Focus, Nightstalker at start, Lost Goddess Event, Hohlicks Play Event.
Thea: The Awakening, Horos 3, Part 2
Horos's Divine Quest, Black Cat Event, Goblin Village trading, Baba Yaga's House Quest, Dying Leshy's Wish Quest.
Thea: The Awakening, Horos 3, Part 3
Horos's Divine Quest, Baba Yaga's House Quest, Cosmic Tree Quest, Striga Master Event.
Thea: The Awakening, Horos 3, Final Part
Mamuna, Striga Mistress Event, Goblin Village trading, Cosmic Tree Quest, Dragon Lair, Refugees Event, Late Forest Elf Druid, Horos's Bonuses.

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Return of the Giants and Story Bundle Version

1.20.1912.0
Lada 2, the one with running from corner to corner of the world.
Thea: The Awakening, Lada 2, Part 1
Gatherers Village Focus, Elf Visitor Event, Wicker, Ruins of a House Event, Old Tower Event, Tree with Crow's Nest Event, Tutorial Hochlicks Again Event, Black Wolf Event.
Thea: The Awakening, Lada 2, Part 2
Meeting Hall, Attract Beasts, Baba Yaga's House Quest, Dragon bones, Traders Visit Event, Claw of Veles, Thieving Dragon Event, Skeleton of a Dragon Event, King's Quest.

1.20.1921.0
Thea: The Awakening, Lada 2, Part 3
Chess Bandits Event, Poisoned Village Well Event, Werewolves Attack Event, Tutorial Dungeon, Vily, Lada's Divine Quest, King's Quest, Suspicious House Event, Striga Bat.
Thea: The Awakening, Lada 2, Part 4
Cosmic Tree Quest, Wandering Elf Event, Village Wedding Event, Dwarf Bandit Event, Baba Yaga's House Quest, Gravely Ill Child Event, Giants Return Quest, Dragon's Bane, Late Forest Elf Druid.
Thea: The Awakening, Lada 2, Part 5
Blessed Tree Symbol, Silveroak, Giants Return Quest, Dwarf Bandit.
Thea: The Awakening, Lada 2, Final Part
Dragon Lords Encounter, Holy Hog, Giants Encounter, Skeleton of a Dragon Event, Dragon bone full Equip, Bandits Event, Lada's Bonuses.

1.20.2010.0
Zorya 1, the one with the Dwarf Smith and the Giant Crow.
Thea: The Awakening, Zorya 1, Part 1
Warriors Village Focus, Tutorial, Visiting Dwarf Event, Dwarf Smith, Old Goblin Visit Event, Goblin Peddlers Event, Smithy, Zorya's Divine Quest, Tutorial Dungeon, Gravely Ill Child Event, Giant Crow, Falling Star Event.
Thea: The Awakening, Zorya 1, Part 2
Hangedman Quest, Visiting Orcs Event, Zorya's Divine Quest, Chess Bandits Event, Orcs from Smithy Quest Again Event, Baba Yaga's House Quest, Elf and Orc Love Story Quest, Skeleton of a Dragon Event, Gravely Ill Child Event.
Thea: The Awakening, Zorya 1, Part 3
Dwarf Smith, Totem, Old Oil Lamp Event, Village Wedding Event, Cosmic Tree Quest, Dragon's Bane, Goblin Village trading, Musician Craftswoman, Gravely Ill Child Event, Elf and Orc Love Story, Scavenger, Watchtower, Orcs from Smithy Quest Again Event, Cosmic Tree Quest, Manger.
Thea: The Awakening, Zorya 1, Part 4
Visiting Orcs Event, Cosmic Tree Quest, Dusktown, Old Oil Lamp Event, Holy Hog.
Thea: The Awakening, Zorya 1, Final Part
Giants Return Quest, Werewolves Attack Event, Alpha Wolf, Claw of Veles.

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