welp, still no clue on what the issue was, but I seem to have fixed it by uninstalling and reinstalling the community patch.
however, I seem to have given myself a new bug. I read in the CM notes that the 'start island' portal was enabled, and this intrigued me since I had never been there. so I fired up a lan multi to get the portal activated... and I seem to messed up my quests. for one, several quests I had accepted are now removed from my log. and, more annoyingly, 'hunting fever' has been added to it. which will start a timer as soon as I accept any other quest, leading to an unavoidable failure. considering I am in sloeford, I am far far away from the point I should have that quest. is there any fix for this, or do I just have to accept that quest on this diff is bunk.