Davkul Rising

"Whispers abound, from the huts of the smallest fishing village, to the halls of the most impenetrable forts. Gatherings of those who were once few and scarce, have swelled to many and wide.

Cloaks and hoods in the night have turned to kidnappings and sacrifices by day.

They offer themselves, this world, and everything in it, as oblations.

And Davkul stirs."

-Cal the Seer, date unknown

What is this mod?

The cultist archetype gets expanded into a faction, adding a bunch of new units, gear, locations, worldmap mechanics, two new contracts, a few events, and more.

Where to find the cultists?

Cultist camps spawn close to settlements, and will regularly raid them. They eventually grow in size and difficulty, spawning new ones close by as they grow to the largest size. Random parties roam the worldmap and travel towards these locations. A legendary location hides in the wilds, as well as smaller, high-end camps. One contract becomes available in the town that's being raided, and a noble quest becomes available once some lairs have grown large.

Some info about mechanics:

Cultists like to capture people to use as sacrifices in their dark rituals. You'll meet Prophets on the battlefield, dragging Sacrifices with him. He'll murder those over time, casting a dark spell. Try to knock the Sacrifices unconscious, or focus fire the Prophet outright. Should you manage to rescue some of the Sacrifices, they'll surely be grateful to you.

Cultists are big on scaring you. Your brothers need to be mighty brave to face them. Likewise, they're not very impressed by you, and are hard to break. You'll have to slug it out.

Cultist camps grow by being fed sacrifices. You can inhibit their growth by intercepting cultist parties.

What feedback am I looking for?

Feedback about difficulty at various campaign levels, balance of the items and enemies, amount of cultists on the map and their spread rate, bugs, generally things you like and dislike.

Custom art is all done by the great Misha. Big thanks to him. Also big thanks for msunavygrad and Luft for their support and input, as well as everyone else that has given feedback or reports since release.

The banner image was made by Luftwaffle.

Music Track 1 by bensound.com under an open license.

Music Track 2: Band of Drums by Ganim : https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MHdFpZ1jb_Q

DISCLAIMER:

This mod is rather extensive, and this is the first large-scale exposure, so it's likely that there are some bugs left in it. This might crash your game, and might corrupt a save, so make frequent backups.

FOR LEGENDS USERS:

There's some weird bug with sprites that I haven't been able to track down yet. After installing the mod, you'll need to save and reload a campaign, otherwise you get bu