mouton

If you are playing a Shaper, everything will one-hit you anyway. That's his special power, you see.

Of course. Just saying that in most games Sliths/Nephils would have been inhuman monsters and Empire would consist entirely of brutal fascist stormtroopers. Thus, even in a relatively simple setting, Jeff does nuance.

Not entirely. While less ambiguous than other games, it still is less black & white than 90% of games. For example, the Empire - or at least its subjects - are sometimes shown in almost-sympathetic way - especially the conscripted soldiers sent down to infiltrate The Pit. There is also some humanization of the Sliths and Nephilim, of whom you basically commit genocide of. I remember a Nephil slave that you release later on in the game who mentions intent of returning to her mate who lives in a Nephil fort which you, uh, kind of burned down to the ground earlier. Edit: Talking about AEftP only - haven't played 2-6

If you liked the writing of Avadon, we can happily recommend Geneforge series. Interface in the first part can be slightly... traumatizing at first, but these are quite sublime wonderfully written games. And there is five of them.

Geneforge 5 features a person who *might* have been a protagonist from G2 or G4 or whatnot. But yeah, Jeff prefers the scorched earth approach towards past heroes. If Mass Effect taught us anything, it is a sound strategy (:

There is no shame in playing lower difficulties, if the higher challenges kills your enjoyment. I am play Spiderweb games on torment but I fully understand that someone else might not find crying bloody tears fun.

This is one of the reasons I really like Avadon, despite its flaws: it is a about maintaining a shaky federation using realpolitik. Liking or not liking a powerful ally's attitude is extremely low on the priority hierarchy.

Terror etc. is a problem, but frankly, I somehow got over it on Torment. Everyone had Unshackle Mind after some point (even fighters) and I think I made some of them Arcane Knowlege/Resistance to boost their mental res. I didn't even give them mental res helmets or anything, somehow it always played out. After a reload or ten. Anyway, mental effects by themselves are rarely the reason - usually its more about not having proper auras/enough hp/enough damage dealing. Remember you can always respec your party using character editor, no need for starting over.

Out of curiosity, do the Sliths from behind the gate ever raise their scaly heads in avernum 2-6?

A pity, I hoped there was some fourth canister not documented elsewhere. It would be nice to get ur-drakons in a non-powergamey-sneaky-exploity way. Oh well.

They weren't wiped out, just assimilated by the Drakon/Taker-led greater rebellion. I think even in G3, where rebels are the most insane, there are some echoes of the Awakened among the servile folk. And, well, their ideals come back in G5.

Well, Takers do

How? I know three canister locations, one of which is endgame. Challenge area?