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