[NPC mod] Ashar
Pustak_Stropowy
Member Posts: 23
When asked about her past, ASHAR snaps, "What does it matter now?" and flicks her hand dismissively. Nevertheless, she starts to incoherently relate her tale. She was raised in the Sword Mountains, north of Waterdeep. In this place, a powerful warrior called Dagon Iron Shield created a country which gathered local half-orc tribes. Ashar served in Dagon's personal guard. She talks with a great respect for him, praising his skills, honor, and fair deeds. However, two years ago, Iron Shield was killed by his power-hungry son. Most of Dagon's supporters were forced to flee or be killed or, as Ashar was, be sold into a slavery.
This modification adds a new, joinable NPC to Baldur's Gate II: a half-orc barbarian named Ashar.
Ashar can be found near the Copper Cornet's entrance, right after the death of the tavern's owner, Lehtinan.
The modification offers about 20 dialogues with the PC, a modest romance, as well as many interactions, comments, and banters with all BGII NPCs.
Ashar is aggressive, plainspoken, but also a bit confused woman. Fell free to say what you will, during talks with her, there aren't any "correct" or "incorrect" answers. However, be aware, because your words and deeds may have a great impact on Ashar's character.
Great thanks to: Damianus_NT, Lava Del'Vortel and Vinci for their help in testing and creating the modification!
Special thanks to Geddoe, who have taught Ashar how to speak English correctly. Thank you for your great proofreading job!
Have a good game and any comments are welcome!
Additional information:
- The modification is compatible with both the "old" game version (Throne of Bhaal expansion pack is required) and Enhanced Edition.
- Her "friendship path" talks activate approximately once per hour, check Readme file for full list of dialogs.
- Romance can be started after "friendship path" dialogs, in the Underdark. Check Readme file for more information.
- Ashar should be joined to your party in II or III game chapter. You will miss much of the modification content, if you join her later.
- For now, the modification doesn't have any content for the Throne of Bhaal expansion.
-To install the modification you need to extract Setup-AsharNPC.exe and AsharNPC folder into your game folder, double-click Setup-AsharNPC.exe and follow the instructions.
- English and Polish language versions included.
Post edited by Pustak_Stropowy on
17
Comments
In case of any problems with Spellhold Studios, you can download Ashar also form there:
DOWNLOAD 2
Hey, maybe this isn't the most complex and sophisticated modification in the history of BGII (and it was never meant to be). But Ashar talks, banters, fights and works fine, without bugs, all you need is to download, install and play.
I think dozens of hours of work deserve some feedback...
Nalia - 2
Aerie - 3
Jaheira - 4
Korgan - 2
Keldorn - 3
Minsc and Boo - 2
HaerDalis - 3
Cernd - 1
Edwin - 1
Valygar - 3
Mazzy - 4
Yoshimo - 2
Imoen - 2
Viconia - 3
Jan - 1 (sadly, I don't drink enough to write good dialogs for him
Dorn - 2
Rasaad - 2
Hexxat - 1
Neera - 1
I will play the mod, but still waiting for final 2.5 then i will comment this NPC.
ToB? Well, sadly it's a lot of work, but... maybe (just maybe!) if more people play my mod (and give positive feedback), this will mobilize me to create ToB content, who knows?
I like happy endings, so probably everything will go according to her plan (which she shared with PC during the conversation in the Underdark).
But, long story short:
-Any good, pure neutral, or lawful neutral PC character
-Try to follow a path of "goodness" during the game
-Romance can be started during the chapter V
-No other confirmed romance (with the NPC from the game)
If you try out my modification, I will be grateful for any comments.
New portrait, well, maybe it isn't marvellous, but Ashar wasn't supposed to be a miss of Faerun.
And, as always, I invite you to download and try out my modyfication
If you play more, I would love to hear longer review
I think Ashar has some interesting dialogues, so you shouldn't be disappointed
So, please, maybe you could try out Ashar now.
Then tell me If you liked her and maybe this will motivate me to finish the mod
Portrait and Voice: C+
I know you've got a custom portrait for her but I did change it to the "female half orc" portrait from BGEE , which suits her as well and is more polished. Her voice is an original soundset from IWD2 , and honestly I prefer that rather than the possibility of amateurish voice recording.
Personality: B-
Pustak, you've done a good job portraying Ashar's low intelligence and wisdom, I mean, she doesn't act "dumb" like Minsc, but she does sound simple and direct in the way she acts and talks. However , I gave her a B- because it gave me the impression that you've written two Ashanas:
One who speaks to CHARNAME is a very simple, generic way , which even though may be consistent for her own character it did not seem plausible for a player whose character would enjoy at least trying to dig more information from her. I don't know how far these dynamics go because I haven't finished SoA, yet.
The other Ashana that you've written appears and shines when it comes to party banters. I've seen modders that are okay with writing their own material but when it's about banters that include official NPC's they just screw up . Not the case here, from the party banters that I've seen you it is quite clear that you've put a lot of effort into making them *believable*. It really felt like something that either Anomen, Yoshimo or Viconia would say to a female half orc (Jaheira not so much, but I guess it's harder to capture her nuances). I applaud you for that and should there be a ToB version I will definitely plan on having her around for a full playthrough.
Implementation: C+
Ashana can be found at the Copper Coronet's entrance right after Hendak's freeing the slaves quest is completed so she can be added quite early. I gave her a C+ for the personality reasons I mentioned above: there's is nothing wrong with her lines, but they did feel BG1-ish , like "this is who I am, can I join your party". As I said, nothing wrong with that but in SoA these kinds of dialogue can get really overshadowed by the original ones , and as I mentioned before you did capture well the writing from SoA, specially when it comes to banters. In my opinion the key for writing these dialogues is to estabilish a personality without overshadowing the other characters too much, something that even Beamdog seems to fail when writing some of their characters.
Power: B+
Ashana is a half orc barbarian with STR 17, DEX 17 and CON 17. Nothing powergamey (which I'm glad for !) and she can work well as a tank and damage dealer.
ToB: Not yet, but you definitely should!
So I guess that is it so far. You may have noticed that I'm the kind of player who really loves banters and dialogues, and would rather have a balanced character than a powergamey one , so you're on the right track! Thank you for your efforts and I'll definitely give it a try when ToB version comes.
First, it's because I was leaning how to write dialogs during this mod creation, so later talks are probably better than early ones
So, you shouldn't be disappointed and I hope you will play more
Essentially, you can't make tra calls with the VERSION string since the tra files don't get loaded until later. Just change it to a ~v13~ or somesuch.
Could You download and check this repaired version? - https://we.tl/t-DZXrM8VELk
I will update it on SHS if everything works.
Thanks for help.
While you're updating this mod, may we get this mod made natively EET compatible? The newest EET version for EE 2.6 has discouraged even more BG:EE only mods from installing before EET.
Thankee!
Ashar is awesome! I particularly like her theme music too. Thanks for this mod!
Sadly no - I tried to write ToB contents, but I gave up. Let's say that Ashar returned to Sword Mountains to fulfill her plans and you can take Serevok in her place
Good to know you like my mod, thanks
According to my tests with the EET mod auto converter, Ashar is EET compatible. Enjoy, all!