Thea: The Awakening, Zorya 1, Part 3

My Dwarf Smith had a total Craft of 21 with bonuses from the village Smithy (2) and Craft Tools (5). His skill was high enough to eliminate any chance of producing a Bad Quality item. With lots of resources in the village, the Dwarf Smith was going to be busy for some time crafting.

The Dwarf Smith had 21 Craft.

I started construction on a Totem made entirely of Dryad wood. This would give my village the Magic it needed. In addition, if a Child grew, I could select the Witch class and get someone with Magic (though only a little).

Building a Totem of Dryad wood.

'I' found an old oil lamp. Cleaning it released something sinister. Since I abhorred the sacrifice of a Child, I did battle with the evil spirits. The reward was an Amber Runestone of Bad Quality and Bless of Will.

An old oil lamp was found.

There was a wedding in the village. The marriage ritual was different from the one I had in Lada's game. It appeared that each deity had his or her own ritual. Incidentally, the marriage couple were the two people who wrestled with the Orcs before.

Two villagers decided to get married.

My main expedition made it to the first site of the Cosmic Tree Quest. It was also the last location to explore in the game world.

The game world was fully explored.

I started crafting my first Dragon's Bane to prepare for more powerful baddies. Since I was going to use some rare materials, I selected Coal as the Catalyst to increase the chance of getting a Good Quality item.

Crafting the Dragon's Bane.

I had found the Goblin Village and completed the goblins' request. As such, I was allowed to trade with the village.

The Goblin Village was open for trade.

I went with my favorite trade of armor for rare resources. Exchanging the junk equipment I had with the Armour attribute, I received Dragon leather, Enchanted bones and Dragon bones.

The Dragon leather, Enchanted bones and Dragon bones obtained from trade.

The Goblin Village was a short distance from my village so I could easily conduct more trade later. However, it was tedious to remove equipment that I would like to keep and then reequip them later. I would drop those equipment nearby then return to collect them after the trade. At that time, I would have to remember to whom each piece of equipment belonged to.

The Goblin Village was a short distance from my village.

My village had been attracting humans. One Craftswoman who was attracted looked odd since she had an image of a musician playing a harp. It appeared that music was considered a craft.

The Craftswoman looked like a musician.

Yet another Child fell ill. This time, I had a Totem up and running. The Totem gave me enough Magic to select a Hex Challenge. Winning the Challenge gave me a Child Wraith.

A Child turned into a Child Wraith.

I finally had someone with Magic. However, I later realized that 4 of the Child Wraith's Magic came from the Totem and it lost the bonus when it left the village. The Child Wraith also had high Leech and Poison.

The Child Wraith had Magic, Leech and Poison.

With the Child Wraith, I had enough Magic to finally complete the Quest I call the Elf and Orc Love Story. As a result, a villager gained a little more Magic and a few others gained Intelligence and Folklore.

There is a spelling mistake in this screenshot.

I had already started the Cosmic Tree Main Quest. The Quest proceeded without any difficulty. After I had found the Elf Guardian, I had to retrieve some Cosmic Tree Shards. It was then that the Quest started sending me to further locations. The shards were located at the south-west of the map while the location to report to after that was at the west. Water increased the distance my people had to travel but since the World Size was Small, the distance was not very great.

My expedition had just found the Elf Guardian.

A Child grew up. Since I had a Totem, I had the option of choosing a Witch. However, there was also the option of the Medic. I needed more Medics to protect the village and an additional expedition. In addition, I did not have a Herbalists hut so it was not certain that I would get another chance for a Medic. Thus, I chose the Medic instead of the Witch.

The options I had when a Child grew up.

I went back to the Goblin Village to trade junk armor for more resources. However, when I entered the village, the settlement disappeared with no explanation. I wonder if it was a bug with the Event or if I was only allowed one trade session. Or perhaps it was some drastic measure by the Goblins to escape the poor trade.

My expedition was on the spot where the Goblin Village was.

My village attracted a Scavenger. I did not know that Scavengers could be attracted as this was a first for me.

My village attracted a Scavenger.

I decided to construct the best Watchtower I could. It would be expensive since rare resources were to be used but it would be worth the early warning I would have. This was important since 5-star baddies could have already appeared at the map edges.

Building a Watchtower of Ancient wood and Mithrill.

And as it turned out, there was a 5-star baddie group next to a 5-star lair. The lair would be difficult to tackle since it would be filled with Giants, which were difficult for my people to defeat. In addition, my people's development was focused on Fight Challenges. They would have trouble with other Challenges of 5-star difficulty.

5-star threats on the way to the Cosmic Tree Quest.

The Orcs appeared again with more sick Children. It seemed that this was a repeatable Event and a source of Children.

The Orcs had another sick Child.

Near the end of the Cosmic Tree Quest, I discovered that replanting the Cosmic Tree would not be an option when Zorya was involved.

There is a spelling mistake here.

I unlocked the Manger, a new building I had not constructed before. The building could attract Beasts and Humans. I was not certain of the value of the Animal Kinship bonus since I could not recall any Events in the village requiring Animal Kinship. Also, Hunt Challenges in the village were rare. The bonus to new Gatherers was welcome but Children would seldom grow into adults at the current stage of the game. In addition, I had decided on a Witch for the next Child who grew up.

Building a Manger of Dryad wood and Grain.

I was almost done with the Cosmic Tree Quest. The game was progressing slower since I had more villagers to manage. I was worried about possible 5-star baddies at the edge of the map. Since the World Size was Small, contact with those baddies was likely and could be sudden.

Thea: The Awakening, Zorya 1, Part 1
Thea: The Awakening, Zorya 1, Part 2
Thea: The Awakening, Zorya 1, Part 4
Thea: The Awakening, Zorya 1, Final Part

Thea: The Awakening, Contents

Thea: The Awakening, Zorya 1, Part 2

My village was cursed by the Hangedman in the Hangedman Quest. The quest proceeded like the Early Access version, unlike the alternate version I had when I was playing with Mokosh. It looked like there were two versions available for this quest, with different outcomes.

The Hangedman Quest.

A group of Orcs wanted to use the village Smithy. One presented option, involving Zorya, was to challenge the Orcs to a wrestling match.

The Orcs wanted to use the Smithy.

Fortunately, my Dwarf Smith had recently returned to the village - he had been away for a short period to gather resources for crafting. The Dwarf Smith and a Warrior participated in the tag-team wrestling match with the Orcs. With the Dwarf Smith's great Strength and the Warrior's Tactics, it was an easy win. The participants gained permanent Strength and the Dwarf Smith learned more Craft.

The Event with the Orcs awarded attributes to villagers.

I started Zorya's Divine Quest. The visit to the Grand University in the first part revealed a lot about Zorya's story.

A visit to the ruins of the university revealed Zorya's story.

Zorya was the honorable sort of goddess. That was a big clue on what to do when the time came to pronounce judgement on the scholars. Freeing the scholars would be the wrong answer where Zorya was involved. Beating them up gave Bless of Strength to everyone in the party.

There is a spelling mistake here.

In the second part, considering what I knew about Zorya, I chose to prove my people's worth through combat. The Bless of Strength from the first part were helpful here. At the start of the fight, I found out that Zorya had a serious dual-personality issue.

Zorya had a dual-personality issue.

I had to fight two avatars of Zorya, each representing her one of her personalities. With Piercing, they took out one of my villagers before the fight even started. In addition, all her minions had Piercing too.

Fortunately, I had brought along the Dwarf Smith (I had run out of resources again). He was at the end of the Tactical stack in the first round. I had equipped him with a Club that gave Blunt to take advantage of his high Strength.

Note that one of my villagers was already injured before the fight.

After the fight, I received Bless of Dexterity for everyone. Three villagers gained +4 Animal Kinship. In addition, everyone was healed of all Wounds, including any received before the fight. That last bit was a relief since I had people who were critically injured.

More of Zorya's story after the fight.

The last part of Zorya's Divine Quest involved the hunting of Simargl as Zorya was the goddess of the hunt.

Can you spot the spelling mistake?

After capturing Simargl, there was some text describing its true purpose as a divine power plant of the stars. Having completed Zorya-approved Challenges during the earlier parts of the Quest, I had an alternate option to put all that power into Zorya and make her the Supreme Goddess.

I chose to make Zorya the Supreme Goddess.

The final reward for Zorya's Divine Quest was a Goblin Beast Master.

A Goblin Beast Master joined the party.

The Goblin Beast Master did not have anything truly impressive. He had Strength, Animal Kinship and Traps. Also, he had good Will for a fighter-type. Unfortunately, he had no Magic, which was present in the characters given as rewards for many of the Divine Quests of the other deities. It was likely that I would have to play Zorya's game with little Magic.

The attributes of the Goblin Beast Master.

There were three bows in the screenshot above. I received those at various points of Zorya's Divine Quest. Perhaps it was Zorya's favorite present. Anyway, I want to note that I had completed the Divine Quest at Turn 146.

As my expedition explored the land, they came across a group of bandits who demanded a chess game. Having a Dwarf in the party provided an instant-win option.

The Dwarf won without a Challenge.

I had earlier completed the Smithy Quest where I introduced a Rusalka to a Dwarf. In that Quest, I kept the Children instead of giving them to the Rusalka (like what I did in another game). Later, I met the Orcs that gave me the Children in the Smithy Quest. Likely because of the result of that Quest, the Orcs entrusted a few sick Children into my care.

The Orcs from the Smithy Quest gave more Children.

The Baba Yaga's House had appeared for some time. Unfortunately, my people had hardly any Magic to deal with the Baba Yaga. Thus I had to solve the Quest with excessive violence.

Completed the Baba Yaga's House Quest with violence.

While some of my people gained attributes, solving the Quest in this manner cursed all my villagers everywhere, including those back in the village. All my villagers had Bless of Health from a random Event at that time and that mitigated the effect of Cursed. However, that was a temporary reprieve and I had to bring each of my people to the Dziody for a permanent fix.

Before my expedition left, they found a few Children under Baba Yaga's House.

A few Children were found.

The Children I gained brought the total number I had to 7. I hoped I would get the Cropping Event and get some-'thing' useful. However, I had not seen the Cropping Event since the Early Access Version.

I had a total of 7 Children.

While I was sending villagers to the Dziody to have their Cursed attributes removed, 4-Star baddies appeared near the village. The baddie group to the west of the village were from the second main Quest, Giants Return.

4-Star baddies appeared near the village.

The situation was tense for a little while, but I managed to deal with the 4-Star baddies and had all the Cursed attributes removed. A few people were seriously injured from the curse and the fights but no one died.

The Quest about the tragic love between an Elf and an Orc appeared for me. However, completing this Quest required Magic, which my people were short of. I would have to delay the Quest until I could find more Magic.

The start of the Elf and Orc Love Story Quest.

Interestingly, the Elf was from the Silveroak clan, which would be the name of the Elf Guardian in the Cosmic Tree Main Quest.

My people came across the skeleton of a dragon. Despite playing with Zorya, the goddesses Lada and Morena were mention in the Event.

Looting the skeleton of a Dragon.

Another Child fell gravely ill. I was curious what would happen if I selected a different option. The Child survived and everyone in the village was blessed with temporary health. I wonder if the result was random. I would need a Totem and its Magic bonus for a chance at a better outcome if I were to have this Event again.

Another Child fell gravely ill.

From past experience, I found that the game tended to get more interesting once the Divine Quest was completed. In the present game, I had a good number of villagers with equipment and abilities to handle tougher challenges. It would soon be time to attempt the Cosmic Tree Quest.

Thea: The Awakening, Zorya 1, Part 1
Thea: The Awakening, Zorya 1, Part 3
Thea: The Awakening, Zorya 1, Part 4
Thea: The Awakening, Zorya 1, Final Part

Thea: The Awakening, Contents

Thea: The Awakening, Zorya 1, Part 1

I have started another game of Thea: The Awakening. After being bored with the lack of things to do with a Small World Size in the last game, I thought I would try playing with a Normal World Size. Unfortunately, the game crashed when I tried to start a new game due to the shortage of memory on my old computer. It appeared that I was stuck with Small for the World Size if I wanted to play.

I decided to play with Zorya. Being confined to a Small World Size meant that the game would progress quickly with less travel time to quest locations. Also, resource gathering spots would appear closer to the village. Thus, I decided to attempt a short game and aimed just to complete both main quests. For this game, my version of Thea: The Awakening was 0.20.2010.0.

The bonuses of Zorya, version 0.20.2010.0.

Since Zorya looked like a warrior, I decided to go with a Village Focus of Warriors.

I was stuck with a Small World Size due to hardware restrictions. I lowered Enemy Aggressiveness to Normal to reduce attacks at night since I was playing with only Zorya's first bonus. I set Starting Villagers to 10 so I had more people at the start. This setting also made it easier for the village to attract people (and weird creatures). I kept Group Limits at 16 as I was uncertain if 12 was sufficient for the Giants Return main quest. I went with my usual settings for everything else, and I definitely turned Blood Bath off in the event someone took heavy damage in a Fight.

Blood Bath will seriously affect a character's chance of survival.

I took a look at my starting assets and resources. I had 4 Children, which meant four potential villagers in the future. There was too little Granite to be of use but Gold was good. I also noticed that there were new character art assets.

Resources available at the start.

After checking the area around the village, I noted a lack of good resources. On the plus side, there was Coal nearby.

Resources around the village.

I did not skip the Tutorial so I had something to do at the start. At one stage of the tutorial, Theodore the tutorial demon sent me to a Hohlick, referring to the latter with a masculine pronoun.

Theodore called the Hohlick a 'him'.

As it turned out, the Hohlick was female.

Can you spot the spelling mistake?

After that, Theodore referred to the Hohlick as a 'woman'. I guess he realized his mistake in gender-reference while my expedition was away.

Theodore gave no hint of his earlier mistake.

A Dwarf visited my village. That was a usual Event early in the game where I would be shown the location of a mine. There was a chance that the Dwarf would join the village. That time, he did.

A Dwarf Smith joined the village.

The Dwarf had a high Level and impressive Strength. He had good stats for a character this early in the game.

The Dwarf was level 10 with 30 Strength!

Later, I unlocked Elven wood with research and instantly received some in the village. I immediately used the wood and my Gold to craft something useful before a certain Gold-thieving Dragon came to visit.

Making use of the Gold before it was stolen.

An old goblin visited my village. In return for a place to rest, he blessed a couple of villagers. This early in the game, the attributes gained were not the useful type. However, having any points in Magic makes it more likely to gain more on level up, a rule which is useful early in the game when it takes less experience to level up.

An old goblin visited at night.

My main expedition came across Goblin peddlers, who had hardly anything to trade. Curious to know if the blessing the Goblins offered would be permanent, I traded some resources for the blessing.

The Goblin peddlers had hardly anything to trade.

At the cost of resources, including two Elven wood (which were precious this early in the game), I discovered that the blessing was temporary. Temporary blessing was not very useful early in the game since my expedition would be spending a lot of time gathering material instead of actively seeking challenges.

The blessing of the Goblin's shaman was temporary.

My main expedition managed to gather enough Elven wood for the village to construct a Smithy. Disappointingly, 50 Elven wood only provided Attract Elven of 1. Maybe I would get lucky despite that and attract an Elf.

Building a Smithy of Elven wood.

A dream from Zorya marked the beginning of her Divine Quest. From the text, I had the feeling that Zorya had multiple personality disorder.

What's with that lack of enthusiasm in the reply?

I checked the map and found that the first location for the Divine Quest had appeared near the south-east corner. Since this was on a Small World Size map, it was not very far.

I attempted Theodor's Tutorial dungeon. Normally, I would need an expedition capable of handling 3-Skull Challenges. However, I was fortunate to have some Magic from a permanent attribute and from temporary blessings. Taking the left path of the dungeon led me to a 2-Skull Hex Challenge. Completing the Challenge awarded me with some Mithrill and more Bless of Magic.

The left path in the Tutorial Dungeon led to a Hex challenge.

When I chose the left path again in the dungeon, I met with the Hex Challenge a second time. Easily completing this Challenge with my active blessings, the reward was some Obsidian and Bless of Magic again.

I had the Hex challenge a second time.

Back at the village, a child fell gravely ill. Unlike the time it happened in another game, my village did not have enough Magic. Thus, I ended up with a Giant Crow instead.

A Child fell ill.

The Giant Crow was not very strong. Its best feature was its Stealth of 8, which would be useful since my expedition lacked members with that attribute. Interestingly, the crow could also equip an Artifact.

The Giant Crow had Stealth.

I unlocked Scaled leather and discovered that Dragon leather had appeared close to the village. That had a good chance of happening since I was on a Small World Size. I just needed the Advancement Points to unlock the resource and the recipes that could use the resource. I also needed villagers with high Gathering attributes to collect the resource.

Dragon leather appeared close to the village.

A random Zorya-related Event occurred where there was a falling star. The Event gave Bless of Health to a few members of my expedition and revealed a giant spider nest.

A star fell to guide the expedition.

Defeating the giant spider nest gave some resources, Bless of Dexterity to the whole expedition and permanent Dexterity to one lucky member.

The game thus far had been slow. I was spending a lot of time harvesting resources since my expedition lacked the strength to venture far. I had been gathering good villagers. The 4 Children at the start were useful as they each grew into an adult (except the one who turned into a crow). The Dwarf Smith was very helpful. I had him crafting in the village so I could not make use of his high Strength in an expedition. However, I might change his assignment since I was running out of resources to craft.

Thea: The Awakening, Zorya 1, Part 2
Thea: The Awakening, Zorya 1, Part 3
Thea: The Awakening, Zorya 1, Part 4
Thea: The Awakening, Zorya 1, Final Part

Thea: The Awakening, Contents