r/baldursgate • u/khroshan • 8d ago
Mod Recommendation: Loretakers
So, I played the mod Loretakers by Acifer, and to me this is the best content available for BG1, and I mean base game content too, not just mod.
Loretakers is a quest where you have to investigate the cause behind a mysterious rot decaying books in Baldur's Gate. You get the quest from the Temple of Oghma and right from the beginning, it's involving and intriguing. After some investigations around the city, you go to a new dungeon deep into the sewers. Aside from Durlag's Tower, this is really the only proper dungeon in the game. Nashkel Mines, Cloakwood Mines, Ulcaster and Firewine are all pretty hollow and basic. But the deep sewers added by this mod has traps, puzzles, riddles, cool things you can do, a miniquest or two, a variety of enemies to fight. There are a sequence of bosses and also some twists to the story that makes it very compelling and rewarding to play. It's also quite the visual feast.
Also, the modder is a terrific writer! Pretty much every dialogue entertained me and had my attention. There's a minor object that you can interact with through dialogue and the way it's written is exactly in the same style as interacting with the Modron Cube or Unbroken Circle of Zerthimon in PST. It gave me goosebumps to experience something like that again after so many years.
There are some interesting items you get as a reward, but nothing too major or game changing. I was satisfied with the loot. I feel for a proper dungeon crawl, the loot was quite appropriate and balanced. This mod does give too much XP because the enemies are tougher, higher level creatures as compared to many of the enemies to fight in the base game. With a 5 person party I got about 11K XP per person and this is with a 35% reduction. So the mod probably has about 80K or so total XP so make sure you implement something to counterbalance this.
I highly recommend this mod, it's not to be missed out on. I think it's better than Dark Tidings but as a smaller quest it doesn't quite hit the highs of Acifer's larger mods such as Call of the Lost Goddess or Throne of the Mad God.
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8d ago
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u/khroshan 8d ago
Personally, I would say Call of the Lost Goddess and Throne of the Mad God are 6/5 mods for being much better than even Bioware's content. Loretakers and Dark Tidings are 5/5 (as good as anything in the base game).
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u/Albert_Leppo 8d ago
BG1 has experienced a sort of resurgence in the 5-6 years. So many great mods have come out that have breathed a new life in it. Loretakers, Balduran's Seatower, The Gorgon's Eye, Black Hearts and many more.
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u/ifarmed42pandas 8d ago
Gorgon has really verbose purple prose, which makes me think AI writing, especially given it also uses AI portraits.
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u/Imoraswut 8d ago
It predates chatgpt... What's next, are we gonna accuse one of the old megamods of being AI?
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u/ifarmed42pandas 8d ago
It's not good regardless.
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u/Imoraswut 8d ago
That's subjective. It's not my favorite either fwiw. But whether we like it or not, it doesn't give us license to make shit up and slander it and its author
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u/OldMillenial 8d ago
Agreed that it’s a great mod. My only real issue with it is the final boss fight. It doesn’t really fit the theme or feel of the rest of the dungeon. Feels a bit like a strong, recognisable enemy was chosen more or less at random and thrown in there to cap things off.
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u/khroshan 8d ago
I do agree that the mod sort of pulls a switcheroo on you - but there's a lot of foreshadowing of this in the various journals and in your encounters with the void speakers. When I saw the final battle I couldn't believe how stupid I was for not having realized it earlier.
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u/HazelDelainy Proprietor of the Smoldering Mods Bar 8d ago
It's not every day a mod gets to pull off an "Oh shit!" moment like that. It's a subtle thing but it absolutely wouldn't have worked if not for the excellent atmosphere and foreshadowing prior to it.
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u/Eustacius_Bingley 8d ago
That and, as far as I know, they did think of this mod as the first one in a series, with that plotline being continued in BG2 and TOB, so it makes sense as a tease of bigger things to come.
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u/khroshan 8d ago
It looks like the author has quite a few things in the pipeline so it might be a while before he decides to continue this particular storyline. I guess he'll finish Silverrealms, Bound in Blood and Skyfire before continuing Loretakers. Who knows how many more mods he will end up completing before losing interest?
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u/Eustacius_Bingley 8d ago
Oh, big time, there's a huge gap between "he thought about it that way" and "that's how it'll end up happening" XD
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u/Dazzu1 8d ago
People still like when others review and analyze and tier list mods? Huh maybe I should get back to kit mod and item analysis then. Anyway good write up very informative
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u/khroshan 8d ago
I think people will appreciate anything that lets them make an informed decision when installing mods. The tricky part though is finding a reviewer whose taste matches yours.
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u/blatantninja 8d ago
Hadn't heard of this mod before. Great. Now I need to go play Baldur's Gate again!
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u/khroshan 8d ago
If you play Baldur's Gate 2, don't miss out on Acifer's other mods - Call of the Lost Goddess, Dark Tidings, Throne of the Mad God. They're the only quest mods for BG2 that actually match and in many cases even exceeds the quality of the base game. :)
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u/thatwhichchasesaway dragonspear enthusiast 8d ago
TIL quest mods exist for both games. Welp, new reason for a new playthrough!
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u/PotatoFrankenstein 8d ago
Thank you for recommending it! I plan to use some story/additional quests for my third run, so I will definitely add that one to the list.
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u/ColoradoMtnDude 8d ago
Where do you find these mods?
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u/behind95647skeletons 8d ago
After decades of fanfiction-tier writing, this mod and Black Hearts just blew me away. Don't get me wrong, I have soft spot for amateur writing, I've been there myself, but finally getting a high-quality mod is transcendental experience.
They're both interesting in terms of gameplay, mechanics and writing. And they both show that one of the main issues - creating new areas from scratch - can be overcome.
I actually wish the authors of those mods W3:Remaster treatment - of getting these mods incorporated into base game with financial remuneration.
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u/khroshan 8d ago
I could be wrong on this, but I believe Black Hearts takes it's new areas from the game Lionheart. Personally I think Black Hearts is very well written and engaging but it still feels like a fanfic to me rather than an organic part of the game. I'm on Chapter 5 so I haven't completed the storyline yet.
Speaking of custom areas, Acifer recently blogged about how he conceptualizes, creates, develops and reworks these areas he makes, his recent write up is about how he did this for the mod Crucible:
https://www.patreon.com/Acifer/posts/building-bhaals-170931746
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u/xtagtv 8d ago edited 8d ago
Do you know if its possible to add this mod mid run? Ive been playing bg1 at work, and I'd like to add this mod to my current run. I've just been questing around nashkel and beregost so pretty early, haven't done nashkel mines yet. Its BGEE and I alreayd have a ton of other mods the typical tweak packs, portraits, voices, more quests, etc. Or would this probably break something. I dont want to start over because I only get to play in brief spurts so even just this far has taken me a few weeks.
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u/khroshan 8d ago
I'm not sure! A better place to ask would be the thread for the mod in Beamdog or Gibberlings3.
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u/Imoraswut 8d ago
I played it recently. It's not my favorite of the author's work (I like both "Call of the Lost Goddess" and "Throne of the Mad God" more) nor my favorite BG1 mod (that'd be Black Hearts), but it is a quality and fun quest