Barovia: What the BHE is that?

I continue to play in Barovia . . . although I don't know why . . . I'm getting my butt handed to me most days and really have no business being here, but I'm succeeding "just enough" to make me want to stick it out.

Barovia is a setting that's been around for a long time hailing back to the days of Ravenloft, a 1983 Dungeons and Dragons module that borrows lore heavily from Dracula. It's a mountain valley that's a densely wooded area with cold winters . . . and lots of undead, cultists, vampires, werewolves, and gypsy folk. Sounds like a great place for a Friendly Necromancer to hang out, doesn't it?

There's one thing I know for sure about Barovia . . . I can kill a deer there!  

. . . not only "a" deer, but two deer at once! 

Yup, there's a quest to kill deer for their meat and then place the meat in front of wolf caves to lure out the alpha wolf and kill it. Check. Can do! Did that this morning in fact! What I can't really do at the moment is kill a giant werewolf boss. It's a gear check fight, and my gear and stats just aren't up to snuff yet.

That's ok. There's still plenty to do here with repeatable daily quests, which most I can do, but those witches and their Ray of sickness spell though. Wow! Can't do that one just yet!

They own me every time . . .

Ultimately Neverwinter is an MMO and the coolest things in the game are definitely multiplayer focused. My favorite of the multiplayer experiences are the "low barrier to entry" heroic events. Most can be done with one to three random people that also happen to be nearby.

There's heroic events with everything from saving a couple of merchants from disaster to defeating a large mass of undead or wolves. . .  and then there is Yester Hill. 

Looks pretty ominous doesn't it? 

I kept seeing people yelling for more assistance for a "BHE." I'm like ... What the heck is a BHE? Bad Halitosis Encounter? No? I'm checking my quest log. *Shrug* then someone (like me) asked in the world chat what that stood for. I'm so glad there are other confused people out there in the world. BHE stands for "Big Heroic Event." Duh. In Barovia the BHE is called Yester Hill.

Now it all made sense. There's a weekly quest to complete three smaller 2-3 person heroic events and the Yester Hill event. I finished mine up just yesterday by joining a group of 12 or so likeminded adventurers in downing the evil Thornspur.

Gettin twiggy wit it

The gist of the encounter is that you need to defeat 50 twig blights who are trying to give Thornspur damage resistance and also defeat a "draggle of druids" (you like that? I just came up with it) who are giving Thornspur additional health. Pro tip: just follow the crowd and kill everything.

Kill all the things!

Eventually Thornspur himself rises up and you burn him down ... End of the Yester Hill BHE.

Low barrier-to-entry events like this I have no problem with completing. It reminds me a lot of the fun world events in Guild Wars 2. Those were always a good time and pretty easy to beat as long as enough random people were gathered in the same area.

My next goal in Neverwinter is to actually go on some 3 person hunts in Barovia. That takes the scariest thing of all . . . interaction with other gamers. *gulp*

Till then ... Happy Dueling!