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Mod author: Red Carnelian

Version used for review: 2.6.

Among the mods from its time period, Stone of Askavar has been one that I’ve seen mentioned several times. Like with so many others, time and availability has granted this mod a generous popularity since 2006, if page views are anything to go off.

Speaking of page views, there’s another page you’ll be viewing while playing through the quest that this mod introduces — a walkthrough. While Stone of Askavar isn’t as obtuse in its storytelling as some others, it certainly shows its age. Poor journal entries are the main offender here, and this is a mod that lives or dies based on the player finding the next NPC or item to progress its story.

The mod’s content can only be engaged with in Chapter 5 or beyond, making the position for its initiation a little odd. Just north of Nashkel, long after you’ll have any reason to go to this area, there will be a group of enemies newly spawned in for you to kill and then loot, whereupon you’ll find a letter that directs you to someone at the Carnival. I feel like this start would feel a lot more organic if it occurred as an actual ambush while travelling, especially if it included some dialogue with the barest amount of exposition given.

I understand that this mod is about 20 years old at the time of writing and it’s highly unlikely that anything in it will change because of my words (nor would I want that to happen), so think of this as more of a general discussion about the mod than a pure critique.

Finding the letter’s sender at the Nashkel Carnival has us meet a bard named Cearwin. You will have the opportunity to ask him to play for you, and I can only assume that the author or someone they knew recorded themselves playing a tune on a guitar and put it into the game. I turned the music in-game off because it overlaps, and while I don’t think it necessarily improves the game, I did find it quite charming as a little piece of history.

Back to the quest, speaking to Cearwin about it reveals that “Teldorn’s men” intercepted the letter’s carrier and they’re after the titular Stone of Askavar, an artefact from a lost elven civilisation… or something. The only thing I know for sure about the story is that it doesn’t actually matter — it could be replaced with any item at all and the story would, functionally, barely change.

Now, who is Teldorn? The mod doesn’t actually tell you, and even as a Forgotten Realms enthusiast, the name barely rung a bell. It turns out that he’s a Zhentarim-adjacent fellow who rules over the city of Mintar in southern Faerûn and is a fervant Bane worshipper, despite the god’s unfortunate case of being dead. Does this context add anything to the story? Well, not really, because for the most part Teldorn’s agents have nothing to say to you and skip right to combat.

There also involves a rather excruciating treasure hunt where you must gather several talismans in order to go after the stone. To get one of them, you have to speak to a beggar and solve the answer to a riddle, then buy him a 2000 gp gem. The option to strong-arm him is there in theory, but he doesn’t drop the gem. I know this, because I thought to myself, “Buy you a gem and solve a riddle? I think I’ll just kill you,” but to no avail. I’m generally a reasonable D&D player when I’m met with unreasonable circumstances, but a gem AND a riddle is over the line for me.

The other talismans can be found across the world — one in a cave north of Nashkel which adds a new subarea which, in my opinion, doesn’t look very good and is filled with annoying enemies.

There’s one talisman in a new area, the Bluebell Wood, which is about as large as most wilderness areas in the game though with nothing to do but kill one group of enemies with no dialogue, though the area is generally quite pretty; and one in another new area, Dystra’s Watch Tower, which is more interesting but filled with odd enemy placements that may quite easily kill a party even in Chapter 5.

Once these talismans are gathered, the player can enter a single-roomed dungeon accessed via the Bandit Camp where the final encounter occurs. It’s a difficult fight, and not necessarily in what I’d consider a fair or satisfying way, but it’s better than some fights in Tales of the Sword Coast for the same level (i.e. the werewolves).

Finding the stone that the mod is named after was so underwhelming — I just auto-looted it off an enemy’s body — that I was confused about whether or not I had it. There’s nothing to do with it but hand it in and take your reward money. Not quite so grand as the few quest NPCs were making it out to be, but it’s a neat little quest all the same.

So… that’s it. It’s quite a short experience that was made longer by confusing me into following a walkthrough, though I can’t say that some of the fights weren’t engaging. Most of the unique enemies have new gear that can be looted from their bodies, and while in a lot of cases their descriptions don’t make it very clear what they do, they at least make the fights against those using them more fun.

My main of contention with this mod is the writing (and sometimes, lack thereof). Aside from the quest having an absentee villain we are given no information on in-game, the mod usually only gives one — sometimes two — dialogue responses to quest NPCs, and that response is usually “Yes. Tell me what to do now.” When part of a quest involves collecting items, I generally prefer there to be multiple ways in which the player can obtain them.

There’s also a general lack in punctuation and grammatical consistency — sometimes it’s good, sometimes it reads like a first draft, though do keep in mind that all my reviews are referencing only the English version of a mod.

This mod certainly has solid foundations, and those foundations could very easily inspire ideas in others. It’s worth a try if you’re just looking for a quest to bolster you Baldur’s Gate experience with some tough enemies and some extra gear.

The guitar piece is cute, and the tower location is neat, but personally this mod feels like it belongs in a museum display more than it does in your install-list.

Thanks for reading.