Taming the River

Taming the River is a ritual, wherein the quester enters the Gods War to assume the role of Reladivus, and re-enact his taming of the Arcos River. It is the only ritual that's available both in Ride Like the Wind and Lights Going Out.

In Ride Like the Wind, clans whose ancestral enemies are the Forces of Water will start the game already knowing it. Since you can't sacrifice to Reladivus directly, other clans can learn the ritual by sacrificing to Reladivus's father, Elmal, instead. In Lights Going Out, all clans know this ritual from the start.

Benefits

If you successfully complete the ritual in Ride Like the Wind, you can ask for one of the following:

• Taming the Black Eel River.
  Only if you took Black Eel water; allows for crossing of the river with exploration parties, war parties, or merchant caravans without incident.
• Taming the Oslira river.
  Only if you took Oslira water; allows for crossing of the river with exploration parties, war parties, or merchant caravans without incident
• Protection from the forces of Water.
  Will protect you from floods and water monsters for seven years
• Riches from below the waves.
  Immediate 75 goods.

In Lights Going Out, the ritual can only be used to tame one of the three rivers (the Black Eel, the Oslira, or the Forantin) if it has gone wild; the other rewards are not available. It cannot be performed if none of the rivers are currently wild.

Do note that as per all Rituals, even a successful completion will cost your clan magic. Taming the River costs you 3 points. Also as per all rituals, success of the ritual will improve clan mood, whereas failure will harm it.

The Quester

Anyone may undergo the ritual. Since you no longer worship Reladivus, all religions are equal here, so you can choose your quester entirely based on their skills. Keep in mind that there is no one stat that will get your quester through the ritual, though.  Personality can also give some questers an edge. The GoldenCity personality type has an advantage at most choices.

Preparation

When you start the ritual, assuming you haven't tamed both rivers already, you will be asked if you want to use water from the Oslira or the Black Eel river. Performing the ritual with the Oslira river water is more difficult, and the only benefit is the ability to tame the Oslira river. In Lights Going Out, you may choose water from any river that is currently untamed (the Oslira, the Black Eel or the Forantin); it is currently unknown if any of the rivers are harder to tame than the others.

You will then be asked if you want to seek the aid of other Riders. Good relations will have other clans send aid, which will increase your chances of success at all of the ritual actions. Bad relations will get you ignored, or even mocked. You may then also ask the assistance of the Wheels, who have the same benefits but are harder to convince to help you. The more clans that are involved the greater the chance of success, but also the greater diplomatic stakes in the ritual; succeeding at this (or any ritual, for that matter) will increase the like and fear other clans have of you, but especially ones that partook in the ritual. You cannot ask other clans for help in Lights Going Out.

You will then be asked to make a sacrifice. This is a relatively simple ritual to perform, and the sacrifice can be smaller than other rituals without penalty. 8-10 goods/herds is often enough to avoid a penalty when dealing with the Black Eel river, and around twice that seems to be all that is necessary for the Oslira.

Walkthrough

Ride Like the Wind

Unlike most rituals, Taming the River does not have a clear, linear progression. Instead, you will face three occasions in which Arcos tries to overflow its banks, and you must drive it back. Doing so successfully all three times will automatically pass the ritual; succeeding twice will usually pass it; fewer successes will usually cause the ritual to fail.

Each time, your quester will have five options to try to defeat the dragon Arcos, each of which can be used only once:

1. Subdue the dragon by force.
   Combat vs Monster based choice that can be aided by War magic.
2. Use cunning to defeat the dragon.
   Deception vs Skepticism test. Likely a Bargaining and Leadership based choice.
3. Trade valuables with the dragon.
   Bargaining vs.Selling. Crafts Magic aids the choice. Success gives you the opportunity to make a profit on goods based on what you trade, whether you succeed or fail at keeping the dragon confined in the rest of the ritual.
4. Command the dragon to retreat.
   This option tests Leadership. vs Bullheadedness.
5. Seduce the dragon.
   Gifting vs Skepticism test. Possibly a Bargaining and Lore choice. If your ancestral enemies are the forces of Water, this option will be more difficult for the quester. Beren the Tall is also at a specific disadvantage here, on account of being too madly in love with Redalda to convincingly seduce anyone else.

The options chosen by Reladivus were:

• Subdue by force
• Use cunning
• Trade valuables

There do not appear to be any bonuses for taking this path, so you should use whatever skills the individual heroquester is best at.

Lights Going Out

The ritual progresses much like in Ride Like the Wind, but there is an extra scene, which will be randomly inserted after the first or second time you face Arcos:

"<It felt as if the world had rotated/(She/He) had a wave of vertigo>. Suddenly <quester> was in another place, <his/her> way blocked by a pride of ferocious sakkars."

You will be offered three choices selected (randomly?) from the list below:

1. Attack them.
   Tests Combat vs Mooks.
2. Sneak around them.
   Tests Hunting (Combat and Food) vs Alertness.
3. Sing to them.
   Tests Singing (maybe Lore and Leadership?) vs Monster.
4. Bargain with them.
   Tests Bargaining vs Selling.
   Bargaining with the Sakkars will give them temporary access to your clan's hunting grounds, lowering their food yield for the stated time.

If you fail, you may again be offered some of the aforementioned choices with new text:

"When the blur of the Gods War resolved itself, <quester> found <himself/herself> once again blocked by a pride of vicious sakkars. Were the paths of the sacred stories utterly tangled?"

Success will allow you to continue the ritual. Failure can, among other things, result in the quester getting injured or aging several years before being allowed to progress. Failure by a wide margin will also return you to the beginning of the scene, with different choices available this time.