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4/15/2018

Two Worlds Pacifist Run - Windbreak Village Environs

If you ride southwest of Four Stones village over the grassy hills, you'll eventually see windmills on the hilltops, and find a village called Windbreak down the road a short way beyond them.
There are a good number of pacifist run quests you can complete here, a few of which are wrapped up with challenges that you'll eventually need to overcome in order to win the main campaign.
The villagers of note who give quests are:
Master Oldrin: This old Society mage is studying the strange insect-creatures called trachidis, and wants you to bring him one of their eggs. (If memory serves you can just go sneak or run into the lair of the Trachidis and grab the egg without having to kill any of the creatures. Once you have the egg, you can return it to Master Oldrin for some experience points, gold, and reputation with the Society of Mages.)
Master Oldrin
Annon Moha (the other one): This is the senior mage who claims that he is the original Annon Moha, and that the indistinguishably similar Annon Moha in Four Stones is a lying impostor. (Whether you visited Four Stones or Windbreak first to trigger this quest, see the Four Stones Village Guide for details on how to solve this quest for some nice rewards, without destroying either Annon Moha or anyone else.)
Approaching the house of one of the two Annon Mohas...

Mayor Gordar: "An Ogre in the Windmill" 
Mayor Gordar asks you for help getting rid of a monstrous and dangerous ogre that has taken over a nearby windmill above the village. 
Mayor Gordar
This is a quest that you won't necessarily ever be forced to complete, but one we thought had a happier ending by stepping into the "grey area" a little by first luring the ogre into Windbreak Village, and then returning with the lv15 Air spell "Resurrection" to reverse his death, causing him to become permanently friendly to all: 
The ogre at the windmill
If you approach the ogre at the windmill, he'll immediately start lumbering after you and trying to bash you to a pulp, but he can easily be led right back down the hill into the village square. 
The village square is not only filled with mettlesome hunters with longbows, but also a visiting Paladin, and a seasoned military veteran named Ran Hograd (whose toughness is admired even by orc commanders, as you'll find out later). 
This results in a pretty short end for the invading ogre, but after he falls, you can return as soon as you have the Resurrection spell and bring him fully back to life, after which he'll stand up and lumber right back up to the top of the hill to continue enjoying his windmill. 
The hero (wearing orc camouflage armor) casts  Resurrection on the ogre...
None of the other villagers will attack the resurrected ogre, who will remain a permanently friendly ally, giving Windbreak village a free guardian as part of the bargain. 
A kinder and gentler resurrected ogre lumbers back to his windmill...
In our run, we also resurrected two wolves who initially tried to kill us when we were approaching the windmill, but ended up being pounded by the ogre while we were hiding inside the windmill to avoid fighting. After we cast Resurrection on the wolves too, they also became friendly and returned to the paths on the way up the hill. In the end, no one was dead, and Windbreak Village enjoyed not only a resident ogrish guard for their windmill, but also two friendly guard dogs keeping watch on the paths.
Reviving the two wolves that were pounded by the ogre prior to our Resurrection-based peace process...
Note: Mayor Gordar gives two more key quests after this that are part of the main campaign thread to get the Relic Earth Stone, but we covered these under the section on the Earth Stone & Valley of Barrows.

Captain Ran Hograd: "Caravan"
Ran Hograd is a seasoned veteran who will tell you that he and his regiment were escorting a dangerous captured orc commander named White Head to Cathalon when they were ambushed by orc warriors. Hograd was injured and had to stay in Windbreak while the rest of the regiment took the prisoner to the city, but he never heard word of their arrival, and asks you to go find out if they arrived. 
Unfortunately they did not, and by travelling down the wooded road toward Cathalon, you'll find the destroyed caravan still surrounded by orc warriors and archers. You won't have to fight, but returning to Hograd will trigger another quest involving an orc war camp.
The orc caravan raiders attack. (No fighting is needed, but watch out for being one-shotted by the orc archers.)
The details about these are covered in a subsequent section: In order to solve either of the next set of quests involving both Hograd and Mayor Gordar through, you'll have to make a choice about whether to use "creative" pacifist run tactics to either get rid of some orcs, or dispatch some shambling ghouls, since one of the two quest groups must be completed to obtain the Relic Earth Stone needed to complete the main storyline quests...
Finally, just for completeness: A last villager whose quests can't be completed in any non-violent way we know of is Sigyor, who gives "The Woodcutters Camp" and "The Insects." Sigyor is a vigilant member of the community who wants you to exterminate first a camp full of bandits, and secondly a hive of Trachidis. (We don't blame him for his concerns, but neither the bandits nor the insects will ever actually attack anyone at the village, so we gave these two optional side-quests a miss.)

4/01/2018

Two Worlds Pacifist Run - Four Stones Village

Following the main road south of Thabarkin all the way to the more open country near Cathalon, you'll find the picturesque village of Four Stones in a walled enclosure surrounded by four strange megalithic elven runestones.
There is at least one rewarding set of nonviolent quests you can get inside the village, plus several "special" cases:

The Mage House
Two mages can be found inside a large house in the village, both offering quests that can be completed without violence.
Annon Moha: "I Am the Real One"
You'll meet a wizard named Annon Moha inside, who will be vexed (and repeating the word "Fiddlesticks!") since his apprentice is refusing to aid him in his work. The reason: Moha apparently attempted to create a double of himself by performing a rite involving a Magic Mirror, but the double rebelled on him and has now set itself up in Windbreak village claiming that he is the original.
One of the two Annon Mohas...
Moha wants to destroy the double, but can't do so without the aid of the Magic Mirror, which his apprentice refuses to give back to him for an understandable reason: The Annon Moha living in the house next ot the Windbreak Village teleport claims that he is the original, that the Annon Moha in Four Stones is the double, and both are trying to obtain the Magical Mirror in order to destroy the other one.
The nervous Apprentice is named Esperon Hiatos, and you'll find him a short distance a way in the village commons during the day. Hiatos is highly agitated, but believes that a high-ranking Society wizard named Lokar Maois may know a way to tell the dopplegangers apart. He will give you a quest to go find the archmage in Cathalon, but we'll give you the details here, since all you have to do in Cathalon is visit the central mage square to talk with him before returning to Four Stones:
When you talk to Lokar Maios, he'll reveal that he was partially involved in the "experiment," but that he doesn't know any way to tell the two Annon Mohas apart. However, Maios argues that the current situation is actually the best, since both villages now have an equally gifted senior mage at their disposal, despite the bitter complaints of the two Annon Mohas. Lokar Maios will consequently request that you bring him back the magical mirror instead of giving it to either Annon Moha, so that the archmage can dispose of the mirror and prevent either of the dopplegangers from destroying the other.
This is the life-maximizing option we chose, but in order to do that, it's not possible to be completely straightforward with the nervous apprentice Esperon Hiatos: We returned to him, and when he asked if Lokar Maios knew how to tell him apart, we lied by choosing a dialogue option in which the protagonist claims Maios told him how to find a distinguishing mark. Once you give the mirror to Lokar Maios, both Annon Mohas will be safe from destruction.
The nervous apprentice, Esperon Hiatos
You'll never find out which one of the them was the "original" and which was the double, but when you give Lokar Maios the magical mirror, he'll be pleased with you for preserving the two mages, and reward you with some gold, experience points, and increased reputation with the Society of Mages.

Juna Evrist: "Black Shadow" 
You'll meet Juna Evrist, a Society mage who is understandably very concerned with the rise in necromantic energy and proliferation of dabblers in necromancy. (Note: If you come here very early, you may need to have higher reputation with the Society of Mages before she'll give you the quest, but that's easy to do in Thalmont in places like Thabarkin where you can help Rama Erendar recover his staff, or give Daron Moreti a dragon scale, as well as Lokar Maois described above.)
Juna Evrist says that one of the abandoned Elven towers called Earth Claw Tower (which you can see looming up over the northwestern horizons from the village) is now haunted by necromancers and the undead they've summoned. She consequently wants you to "cleanse" the area of the necromancers and their taint. 
Juna Evrist
We ignored this quest on an earlier pacifist run, since we assumed completing it would require slaughtering all the necrolytes, but it turned out that there was a twist: 
This is one of the quests that Two Worlds gives you where the quest will be marked down as solved the moment you enter the area, without actually having to kill any of the swarm of necromancers perambulating around the base of the tower.
We figured this out by sneaking into the tower walls near the end of the game while working on a different quest, and were surprised to receive 2 skill points followed by a quest completion notification and fanfare, even though no necromancers had even seen us yet, and we'd never attacked anything. After we finished our unrelated business at the tower, we returned to Juna Evrist and were rewarded with gold, experience points, and increased reputation with the Society of Mages...
Riding toward the dark spire of the ancient elven tower, now infested with necromancers...
Of course, whether this is an ethical solution or not depends on how immersive you like to be in your CRPG'ing: A pen-and-paper "dungeon master" probably wouldn't let players get away with this, and would probably contrive some fiendish necromantic attack on the Four Stones villagers, followed by wrathful reprisals from the Mage Society, who had been falsely led to believe the necromancers had been eradicated... However, knowing this wasn't a risk in the single player CRPG campaign, we decided it wouldn't hurt to cash in on the xp and gold without fighting, since the AI-controlled necrolytes won't actually ever leave their stomping grounds at the tower to harm the innocent.

Mostrol Mirra: "The Healer's Gathering"
Unfortunately this quest isn't as pleasant and nonviolent as it at first seems to be from the title and basic premise: 
It begins when you enter the house of Mostrol Moria, who says he has an urgent need to gather together his associates, the healers Denor Pater, Grah Magna, and Famah Tolem.
You'll find both Grah Magna and Famah Tolem in Clovelly Village by the sea, and you'll find Denor Pater in Windbreak Village. The good news: Just speaking to them and sending them back to meet with Mostrol Mirra will reward you with experience points.
The bad news: Mostrol Mirra turns out not to be Mirra at all, but an impostor who has hatched a revenge plot to kill the healers, who he claims callously refused to heal his daughter, causing her to die in agony in his arms.
It's a grim story, but one which you can at least remedy to some extent by casting the level 15 Air Spell "Ressurection" on the both of the healers that Mirra already murdered to avenge his daughter. (Mirra and the resurrected healers won't attack each other at that point, but of course if Mirra and/or the surviving healer who are still having a standoff end up attacking each other, you can always cast resurrection on anyone else who dies too.)
There's also several more encounters at Four Stones Village that soft-hearted pacifist challengers may want to avoid:
If you approach Four Stones from the roadside, don't talk to a girl named Laza Larat, because trying to do a good deed by giving her some gold to buy medicine for her mother will surprisingly end up resulting in her being killed by some wolves after she tries to go gather herbs to repay you. (If there's some nicer way to avert this disaster, feel free to let us know.)
On a similar note: 
If you've already been to Quidnar and talked to a Giriza thief named Sling, he'll try to get you to kill a man named Scar who will also be found here, but you'll never be forced to do Scar an injury unless you go out of you way to talk to him and declare that you've come to slay him. (This is an exmaple of why we recommended that you help out Stork and Keshi Lono at the Thabarkin Crossroads Inn to raise your reputation with the Giriza non-violently, because those two were among the few Giriza members with goals that didn't involve bumping someone off.)
Bidding farewell to the village of Four Stones...
Having concluded our quests of choice in the Four Stones environs, the time came to ride south through the hills to seek out more pacifist challenge quests in another small village called "Windbreak Village..."