Lord of Nothing: "The Price of Pride"

So, I completed the Lord of Nothing dlc, achieving the 'bad ending' wherein my main character turned on her party, and I have to say I'm impressed Owlcat.

I'd heard that there were 'good' and 'bad' endings to the dlc when I'd first picked it up, and so made a hard commitment to religiously avoid walkthroughs and spoilers, and focus on RP at all costs.

I'm incredibly glad I did.

I'll admit, the telegraphing for the 'bad ending' of DON'T TAKE MORE THAN TWO SHARDS was fairly obvious, from a metagame standpoint, but I enjoyed the focus on roleplay with the warnings you get. It's never described as 'certain' what will happen if you take on too many shards, and so when playing as an arrogant elven-noble cavalier, it felt incredibly fitting when I finally took on a third shard; initially passing my will-save in the shadow realm, only to fail at the critical moment for the angelic ritual. Truly, paying the price of pride. I'd genuinely become attached to my party, and watching the betrayal just emphasized the darkness of the overall story, along with the corrupting power of the Abyss.

Speaking of the shadow realm, I found the areas, especially the sidequests therein, to be incredibly interesting and well written. Seeing the ruined Sarkorian city of Storasta, complete with additional lore, was a major highlight, along with the dragon subplot. The shadow realm itself was certainly a chore to wade through, but it felt refreshing to be 'normal' (relatively) adventurers, and to seriously struggle fighting things like greater shadow demons that I'm used to my Knight Commander batting aside like so much trash. Through the Ashes and Lord of Nothing will be regular companions to any future playthroughs, just for this excellent additional context and scene-setting they bring to the table. And on the note of companions, Penta was a excellent addition. I greatly enjoyed the magiscience Numerian android concept, and it felt very well executed.

I played on core difficulty, which felt like an appropriate challenge. Due to not using a walkthrough, I missed the optional boss fight of Chained Darkness (learned in my post-playthrough reading that I found him, just didn't know to cast true seeing). However, scored *most* of the hidden gems I think due to diligent exploration. Beer elemental, huzzah!

Finally, I have to say the dark ending had some absolutely fantastic cutscenes. Seeing my heroic cavalier forsaking her party and *kneeling* before a demonic herald felt like something out of an epic fantasy novel. The reveal of Sithhud in that ending as well was stunning; I don't need stellar graphics for my cutscenes, I need atmosphere, and that was done perfectly.

I'm now deeply excited for fighting Sithhud as my Dhamphir-Angel in Act V. It'll feel great to pass judgement upon one who, through manipulation and temptation, brought down a group of genuine heroes.