The next of the Vasty Deep dungeons is the Abandoned Labs. Here, the Erudites conducted the majority of their non-botanical experiments. Additionally, the Labs contained the living quarters for all the Erudites working in the Vasty Deep. Much has changed here, with Odus's troubles, and adventurers will learn much of the fate that met the poor people trapped within these walls.
From Mortalus:
This is the second of the Vasty Deep dungeon series on which Leah "Mortalus" Swigart worked. She's done an excellent job and sat down to give us some really great insights into this zone!
What sort of feel were you trying to give players with this zone?
The Abandoned Labs feels foreboding and creepy. Kyle “Kander” Vallee populated the Vasty Deep zones and the monsters and boss fights he created are really tailored to the themes of each zone. In addition to ghosts in the Abandoned Labs there are escaped experiments and maybe even a void-touched scientist or two.
What’s your favourite part of the Abandoned Labs?
The Libararium. Be sure and look “outside” for a few moments, it’s a nice diversion from fighting.
What do you think is the coolest part of this dungeon?
The whole dungeon is really cool. There’s really nothing like it in EQ2. When I sat down with the artist we discussed the fact that EQ2 already had a number of laboratories and we wanted it to be completely different from those while still being recognizable as a lab. I stressed that it needs to look creepy, it needs to be obvious that bad things have happened here. The erudites do things in the pursuit of knowledge that other races would balk at, be it necromancy studies conducted by the Heretics of Paineel or otherwise. Erudites are not inherently good or evil; they look at the world in a way that is different from most other races. For the erudites, knowledge truly is power and they may do things that others find good or evil to gain the knowledge they seek. Players should definitely keep that in mind, going into the Abandoned Labs.
How does this zone progress the overall story of Odus and what happened to its inhabitants?
In the Abandoned Labs you get to see the actual experiments of the Erudites. An important question is which experiments predate the Void invasion as the Void influences everything in Odus. Players will meet refugees that are aware of what happened in the Abandoned Labs and they may want help from the player. The Erudin refugees do not want their Paineel brethren to find the Abandoned Labs, of that I am certain.
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