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Mod author: Lava Del’Vortel

Version used for review: 7.1.1.

This mod is three things at once — a continuation of Siege of Dragonspear, an NPC mod for Skie Silvershield, and optionally for (and this is your warning that this review contains spoilers) Eddard, Skie’s supposedly dead brother. It’s better at being the latter than it is at the former, but that is to be expected from a mod, and where focus is applied, the mod oozes with charm and competency.

Before one can have Skie (or Eddard) in their party, they must complete a new questline that begins in one of the very first rooms of the game. In Chateau Irenicus, alongside your precious Golden Pantaloons, you will find the Soultaker Dagger. It’s shattered, seemingly beyond repair, but you are given a choice between taking it with you or leaving the past behind. Taking it with you will initiate the questline, while discarding it will give you the equivalent of the unmodded experience from that point forward.

Once you leave the dungeon, you can ask around about Soultaker to get it repaired. After questioning about in the Adventurer’s Mart, you’ll find your lead — an elderly mage named Nem.

Nem can indeed help, and she’s standing right near the Copper Coronet in the slums district. This is… a little too convenient, but Athkatla is a big place. Restoring Skie’s soul from the Soultaker Dagger, perhaps inevitably, is relegated to a side quest. As of later updates, that side quest is a short but lavishly produced affair that takes the player to several custom-made areas, and it’s certainly enjoyable but it functions more as an emotional recruitment mission for Skie than it does as a full conclusion to Siege of Dragonspear’s story — which this mod is clearly not *trying* to be, which is okay. There are, however, plenty of interesting and worthwhile callbacks to Siege happen while Skie is in the party.

The process to retrieve Skie’s soul from the broken dagger is at first a simpler affair than it seems to be — you have to find someone to replace her soul within the dagger. Thankfully, there happen to be multiple people around the Slums who are so down on their luck that with a little convincing will agree to commit this selfless act for you. Finding a willing participant will allow you to enter a demi-plane held within the gemstone of the dagger.

A very secret participant is available to those characters of particular short stature. Within the Slums sewers under the Copper Coronet, there is a rather hidden little entryway, where a retired lich lies in hiding. He can indeed be convinced to have the Soultaker… take his soul, but he derives great joy from informing you that he’ll be using it to gather his power and turn it into a wildly powerful phylactery.

With the lich included, there are four total options for you to choose from. Each different path will grant the Soultaker dagger different abilities should you take it to Cromwell and have it reforged (spoiler: Bontt, near the temple of Ilmater, gives you the most powerful Soultaker dagger, which gives a +1 to Strength and attacks per round, making it great for bards.)

Entering into the demiplane is the high-point of the quest. The atmosphere is fantastically creepy, and the areas are beautifully integrated. Disturbed whisperings pervade the place while you confront aspects of Skie’s psyche in combat — the encounters are no pushovers, and they only get harder as you move further in, forced to fight waves of disgusting unique monsters, manifestations of the Soultaker itself, including a shadowed version of Aec’Letec. It is not a quest to enter unprepared for.

It’s a thoroughly enjoyable quest with a slightly too-simple beginning, but it ends in an appropriately dramatic way for the weight that it holds in the Bhaalspawn’s story.

As I said, though, the focus of the mod is *largely* on Skie as a recruitable companion, and a few days after some soul-saving shenanigans, Skie will show up at the tavern you’re staying in and ask to join your group.

Skie Silvershield is, however, still Skie Silvershield. A little petulant and bratty, but also clearly weathered by the events of Siege of Dragonspear. To some, she’s not a terribly likeable character — and this mod may not exactly change that opinion, but there is noticeable character growth both from the moment you meet her, and throughout the rest of the game. Skie certainly grew on me over the course of the mod, and as more time goes on I look back on my adventures in her company more fondly.

Unlike some other NPC mods, Skie does not have a massive amount of dialogue. There is no romance, as she’s still figuring out who she is in the world, but she does have a friendship track that will plenty satisfy fans of the character. She will interject and complain on occasion, and there is full content all the way through to the end of Throne of Bhaal. She’s a solid addition to any group, especially as a thief.

Skie’s friendship with the player is engaging and entertaining, with moments of her being annoying and moments of her being cute in a genuinely heartwarming way. She’ll start calling you her bestie after a few heart-to-hearts and eventually you’re given the option to relent and agree to your newly assigned friendship, and by the time that you do, you’ll probably be fairly fond of her.

Suddenly it’s all gossip and gifts and boys and all the other actual problems seem a little bit smaller now. It helps remind the player that their character is still mortal, deep down. This is a nice touch in Throne of Bhaal, especially, because a few moments of levity with Skie in the midst of it all makes everything else in the expansion seem incredibly depressing in comparison, which is great for the tone.

Skie’s friendship path is backed musically by music from Siege of Dragonspear, and it’s another aspect that feels organic and adds to the production value of the mod. I enjoyed hearing it whenever I spoke to her, as Siege’s soundtrack, composed by the great Sam Hulick, is one of its best qualities.

Once the player receives a more or less positive letter from Entar Silvershield at the end of Skie’s PC banters in SoA, we are then opened to the mod’s optional second quest.

Remember Eddard Silvershield, the dead guy that Kagain was supposed to protect in the first game? Turns out… he’s been alive all along, and is currently in captivity of a slaver — IF you decide to install the component. Choosing not to, and keeping Skie’s story more self-contained is a perfectly valid option, and her content available as a companion is more than enough to stand alone. Eddard himself is more like an entirely separate mod that comes stapled to The Cost if you want it.

You can start the quest by approaching the Five Flagons inn when it’s available. Skie understandably wants to go and rescue Eddard once she finds out he’s alive, though there are few moments where her emotions extend in poignancy beyond “I’m so mad that they took my brother.” Though this type of scenario is hard to write for, given how few people could fathom what it would be like to lose your sibling for an entire year just to find out that they’re alive. For Skie as a character, being petulantly angry is suitable enough.

While Skie has her own conversations, she also interjects and contributes a considerable amount in Eddard’s. It usually boils down to Eddard talking about some sort of memory from his childhood, and then Skie will butt in and say something rude about someone. It can be pretty funny at times, and sometimes a little annoying, in a charming way.

So let’s talk about Eddard, now.

Eddard Silvershield was long thought to be dead — in fact, you could find his dead body laying on the ground in the first game, near Beregost. This mod retcons the identity of that body, letting you know that it was a replacement to cover up the fact that Eddard was, in fact, kidnapped. He was stolen away for ransom before the leader of the bandit group changed the plan, instead selling him into slavery.

For a year, Eddard grew used to living in cuffs. He slept on the cold, hard floor, and performed physical labour daily. By the time that you and Skie come along to rescue him from a life of servitude, he’s about to be sold to a new master. After the expected conversations between him and Skie, he joins your party.

Eddard is a highly educated, noble-born man almost 20 years of age. He’s flirty and playful, but also insecure and scarred from his experience in slavery. He doesn’t trust too easily but having Skie around certainly helps him open up to you about himself.

The brother-sister dynamic that Skie and Eddard have is both believable and enjoyable, with him being the more mature, favoured child.

Eddard is good at outwardly portraying a confident persona. Realistically, however, he was sent on his first mission a year ago at the age of 18, and was then kidnapped and forced into slavery. Trauma does not necessarily build maturity, as some might have you believe, and it makes sense that on the inside, Eddard is still just a boy trying to prove himself.

He does that and more, in your company. Eddard grows from a frightened man riddled with insecurity to a brave and noble warrior who is full of life by the end of the game.

The writing for Eddard is among some of my favourite in this entire mod. I thoroughly appreciated his character from beginning to end, despite the somewhat stiff retconning of his death.

In order to romance Eddard, first you must complete his friendship path, and out of all the romances I’ve seen in this game, Eddard’s is probably one of the healthiest relationships the protagonist can have. He’s romanceable by male and female characters.

His playfulness is amped up a notch when you flirt back with him, and he’s more than okay with entering a relationship slowly, though he will tell you that he loves you at some point. He’s okay with it if you need more time to reciprocate the exact feeling, but he will want a monogamous relationship with you.

At the end of the day, Eddard wants what is best for you. You are both individuals with your own lives and he will accept it with grace if you ascend to godhood at the end of the game. I very much enjoyed the romance here and it stands out even among the vanilla romances. Seeing Skie’s reaction when she finds out you’re snogging her brother is also pretty funny.

Eddard is a custom kitted bard — a Caravan Intercessor.

The intercessor has a higher Hit Die than a regular bard, on par with that of a priest or monk, and may achieve High Mastery with all weapons, as well as maximum points in any weapon style. An intercessor will receive a total of only 12 pips by level 40, so choose wisely.

Lay on Hands, Command, Resist Fire and Cold, Clairvoyance, and Defensive Harmony are all good spells to have, especially as an innate cast. At level 24 the intercessor will receive Chaotic Commands as an innate spell, which is fantastic, though he does cast at a slightly slower rate.

The intercessor has no pick pockets skill, can’t be evil, and only has 50% the lore of a vanilla bard. They also suffer -1 to their arcane caster level, which hurts, but gradually becomes less of a big deal, since bards can achieve a higher level than mages anyway. Unlike Blades, the intercessor doesn’t receive any warrior HLAs.

The Caravan Intercessor is an incredibly powerful class, as all bards are. Dungeons & Dragons fans will never stop trying to reinvent the gish archetype, clearly. The Intercessor was patched to have only High Mastery rather than Grand Mastery, but I still feel it’s a little too powerful. Although, it does make up for how average Skie is as a single-class thief.

On general quality, I found that sometimes dialogue would just go on for just a bit too long sometimes. Several scenes are rather long while not impacting story or characterisation at all, but overall I can’t complain too much. I’m a nitpicker and a pedant — what can you do?

Another component of this mod is a storekeeper that will sell Siege of Dragonspear inspired items. These are not items FROM SoD, but are rather inspired by the events of that game. So, this mod is still compatible with other mods that add Siege items.

However, while I do really like most of the items and they don’t upset the balance of the game, there is one — Irenicus’s Hood — that is just too on the nose. I can’t imagine how that storekeep feels knowing that he somehow owns the former hood of the dude that destroyed the Promenade.

For those not interested, you can simply choose not to install that component of the mod. You can, of course, also choose to skip Eddard in your installation, meaning that he remains dead and buried while Skie joins your party. Alternatively, you can even choose not to install Skie herself — leaving you with the initial quest and/or the vendor, though I would recommend at checking out the rest of the content, as I do recommend that you try this mod out in full if you are either a Skie fan or if you’ve ever wished that Beamdog continued their Siege of Dragonspear plotlines.

Thanks for reading.

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