The Unholy Crusade - Secret Shadow Path Restored

[Flix 5,184]

The Unholy Crusade is a memorable chain quest in Artamark that explains a major conflict going on in the region.  The entire thing is a loose re-imagining of the DeMordrey-Mascarell conflict that underpinned the plot of Sacred 1.  The player helps the green knights of the barony (rebranded "Urtamark") in overcoming the Unholy Crusade who are rampaging across the countryside.  In the process they uncover a high-level conspiracy involving demonology.

What is not well-known, however, is that the published version was meant to be Light Path only.  Ascaron also designed a Shadow Path version of this quest, and completed all the characters, dialog, journals, battles, and scripted events, before pulling the content at the last minute (more on that at the end).

Diablo 2 Fallen v15 will include for the first time the Shadow Path variant of the Unholy Crusade, completely restored and enhanced with new NPC and enemy types for D2F.

  

Structurally it is a 7-part chain quest that mirrors many of the same plot beats from the Light path version, only portraying from the opposite side of the conflict.

It all begins simply enough at the Royal Honky-Tonk north of Valeview.  Speak to the two shady-looking patrons in the tavern to begin the quest.

  

After defending a brigand camp from a Skook's Corner patrol, events will quickly snowball, as the intrigued player completes more and more intense missions and climbs the ranks of the Unholy Crusade.

  

You'll ravage some farms, destroy an Urtamark soldier camp, and even help lead cows laden with explosives to Kufferath Castle to help with the siege effort.

     

And this only the halfway point of the quest.  I'll leave the rest for you to discover when you play it, but here are some notable new enemies you will see in the quest:

Mounted Urtamark Knight

Urtamark elite knights will lead the charge on armored horses clad in the Baron's livery.  They have a group damage buff and can heal allies.

Light path players will not miss out as the Unholy Crusade elite knights will also have a version of this mount to fight.

     

 

Paladin on Griffon Mount

This challenging boss battle takes place at a critical point in the plot.  Even if the mount is slain, the Paladin will survive and continue the fight until the battle is complete.  The Paladin herself can use the Conviction aura (lowers your defense and resistances) and will also cast Fist of the Heavens.  She can cast these both mounted and on foot.

     

     

 

Udchathak the Beast

Formerly a generic demon, Udchathak now has a unique design and animations.  He is now boss class and very dangerous.  Light Path players will also get to fight him.

As with the Light path version, the Star of Astaroth will drop as a final reward for completing the chain.

  

Previous players of D2F might recognize this as the former model of Duriel.  In v15 Duriel will get a new design more faithful to the original D2 monster.  So the old model has been reworked and placed as the final opponent in The Unholy Crusade.

 

Final Note on Why This Was Disabled Before Official Release

The developers intended for a scripted faction switch to occur at a certain point during the quest.  After accepting the second mission, the devs wanted all Unholy Crusaders to become friendly to the player, and all Urtamark Knights to become hostile.  This would continue until the penultimate quest is given where the savvy Shadow player decided to cut ties with the Crusaders.

This scripted faction switch simply did not work, so they disabled the entire quest.  The CM Patch devs also chose to ignore it, and in fact overwrote/replaced almost all of the quest ID's and taskcreature ID's with custom ones for the quests "The Imposter," "Ancient Secrets," and "Bugs!"

I can see no way to make it work, either.  So there are some paradoxical moments where you are roaming around with Unholy Crusade minions but the main body of the Crusade may still attack you like always.  Likewise most of the normally-spawning Urtamark Knights remain neutral to you, even when the quest has you combating some of their brethren nearby.

This is not ideal, but IMO it's not ruinous to the quest either.  I made sure all instances of scripted companions and opponents behave correctly.  And there won't be any glaring conflicts of interest such as Crusaders trying to kill the cows laden with explosives as you try to escort the animals across the country.

Because it's not 100% perfect with the original idea, I don't think I will be adding this to PFP or EE.  It was also a gigantic labor to not only restore everything but also transplant all the phases, scripts, creatures, dialogue, and journal entries to new ID's.  I'm not eager to repeat it.  But I'm very pleased with the result here and I think it will be a fine addition to D2F.

[lacr 60]

D2 mod becomes more attractive

[Androdion 899]

8 hours ago, Flix said:

Paladin on Griffon Mount

[gogoblender 3,223]

NEVER thought I'd see a vision of an anything like this in the game... what eye candy, the scene when moving must be breathtaking... the way you've written out the story line here, history, and the reasoning behind the crusade is beautiful crafting, thank you 

gogo

[Flix 5,184]

12 hours ago, gogoblender said:

NEVER thought I'd see a vision of an anything like this in the game... what eye candy, the scene when moving must be breathtaking... the way you've written out the story line here, history, and the reasoning behind the crusade is beautiful crafting, thank you 

gogo

Pesmontis was first working on the Griffon mount way back in the days when the elite mounts project was still new. I'm happy to finally bring it to life and also glad I found a good spot for it in this new quest chain.