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[Kaldor Silverwand]

[begin teaser]

It is the year 1479 DR, a century after the Spellplague and the return of Abeir changed Faerun forever. On the south eastern coast of Durpar, 4000 miles from the steaming ruins of Neverwinter, lies Riverrock Hamlet, a village too small to be noticed by the monsters and merchants that rule what was once the Shining Lands, but is now known as the Scarred Lands. But ancient forces are awakening and magics beyond mortal understanding are at play. The fate of the village and its inhabitants rests in your hands.

The Gems of Power is a single player campaign. A number of companions are available to accompany your character and additional party members can be created via the Party Editor option selectable in the player menu. Optimum party size is 4-6. Party members should begin at low level.

The Gems of Power is a multi-chapter campaign. The first chapter is scheduled for release in 2011. The campaign requires NWN2 1.23, the MotB expansion, and the SoZ expansion.

[/end teaser]
--------------------

Development of The Gems of Power campaign began in 2007. Progress was interrupted by other projects but the development of the first chapter is underway again. Much has changed since 2007 though and as a result the campaign location and timeframe has been altered. Setting the campaign in the the Scarred Lands of the far east almost a century after the Spellplague offers many exciting possibilities. Though set in the 4E timeframe, the rules will not be altered from standard NWN2 except regarding things like resting, death, fatigue, and crafting, which will be configurable just as they are in my Harvest of Chaos: Kings Festival + Queen's Harvest campaign.

Though the primary setting is Durpar and the lands adjacent to it, my vision for the campaign includes journeys thousands of years into the past, underwater cities, treacherous mountain passes, sailing the Great Sea and the Sea of Swords, and the ability to travel to the Sword Coast and the Moonshae Isles.

As development progresses I will update this thread.

Regards

[dickel]

Nice one. I like the idea of time travel, sounds great.

[Eguintir Eligard]

can you time travel into the future and bring this campaign to a finish then time travel back here and release it now?

[The Fred]

Cool.

[Kaldor Silverwand]

Eguintir Eligard wrote...

can you time travel into the future and bring this campaign to a finish then time travel back here and release it now?

 I wish.

[Kaldor Silverwand]

I've completed (I think) my restructuring of the campaign so that it is set squarely within the published canon of the Forgotten Realms. The primary sources I have used are:

The "Grand History of the Realms", a 3.5e text which documents events from -30000 DR to 1385 DR. Published in 2007 this is an incredible resource with a very useful feature that every time someone/someplace of significance is mentioned on a page the prior prior page and next page where that same thing is mentioned are given. This allows you to easily trace a person or place through 31000 years of history. The Gems of Power in my campaign are ancient items and I've used the GHR to provide explanation of what they are, what they are for, and why they are significant to the current time.

"Shining South", published in 2004 is a 3.5e supplement that covers in detail the southern lands of significance to the campaign, including Dambrath, Halruaa, Luiren, and the Shining Lands (Durpar, Estagund, Var the Golden, and Veldorn.) This book helps to provide historical background for the events of 1479 DR when the campaign takes place.

The "Forgotten Realms Campaign Guide" is a 4e supplement published in 2008. It has a couple of pages of detail on every area within Faerûn, as well as information on the Spellplague and the planes and deities as they exist in 1479 DR.

And lastly, the "Neverwinter Campaign Setting" published just this year which provides the information needed to allow adventuring in the still steaming ruins of 1479 Neverwinter.

I have also read several other game supplements, including "Tieflings", "Vor Rukoth", "Draconomicon: Metallic Dragons", and "Underdark". All of which will have some relevance to game areas.

My intention is that the game will be divided into 4 primary chapters. Most of the 1479 DR areas will be visited in chapter 1 and chapter 2. In chapter 3 there will be an opportunity to explore some areas in the year -339 DR, the Year of Sundered Webs, which was an interesting year indeed, before eventually returning to 1479. And then in the 4th chapter the party will face the forces of... ah, but that would be telling. My plan is to release chapter 1 first, then 2, and then 3 & 4 combined. Each chapter will have its own goals, so each should be enjoyable on its own. Of course when released they will seamlessly fit together so that there will be no need to start over. This is something I learned how to do with the Harvest of Chaos: King's Festival+Queen's Harvest campaign and am certain I can make work with Gems of Power as well.

I have had a very interesting time digging through 31000 years of Faerûn history in an attempt to make the campaign make sense within this incredibly rich tapestry. I think the outcome should be something that will have general appeal. But for those who are familiar with the history of the empires of Faerûn it should be especially enjoyable (I hope).

So the good news is that I am almost back to the point of beginning Toolset work again.

I guess I should say what I will not be including. I will not be using an Overland map or the party conversation style introduced with SoZ. Travel will be done using more standard world maps (several of them). There will be a few companions provided but they will not be forced into the party. I originally planned for a dozen, but that was before the party editor was introduced with SoZ. It will be expected that the party editor will be used to fill out your party. There will be no new music and no voice-acting. There will be very few cutscenes. I will be using standard placeables, models, spells, etc. So it should be compatible with just about everything.

So that is the update for now. Hope this whets an appetite or two.

Regards

Modifié par Kaldor Silverwand, 16 octobre 2011 - 01:02 .

[kamal_]

So is chapter 1 still set for 2011, as your announcement post says?

[M. Rieder]

Sounds very interesting. Best of luck.

[Kaldor Silverwand]

kamal_ wrote...

So is chapter 1 still set for 2011, as your announcement post says?

Im going to try to release chapter 1 this year, but there are more areas than I originally planned so it may take longer. It depends in part on how easily I can find and tailor areas in the vault to meet my needs. 

Regards

Modifié par Kaldor Silverwand, 16 octobre 2011 - 04:05 .

[PJ156]

Kaldor Silverwand wrote...

Im going to try to release chapter 1 this year, but there are more areas than I originally planned so it may take longer.

I know that feeling

Good luck with this, it sounds very good. I like the sound of it being so integrated into the canon for Neverwinter. I think being able to fall back into all that lore makes creating a good tale easier, people feel comfortable and many have knowledge of it so the mod feels more rouinded without them having to read acres of text to understand the setting.

Good luck with later this year

Whats areas are you missing that you might be seeking prefabs for?

PJ

[Dorateen]

Kaldor Silverwand wrote...

The "Grand History of the Realms", a 3.5e text which documents events from -30000 DR to 1385 DR. Published in 2007 this is an incredible resource with a very useful feature that every time someone/someplace of significance is mentioned on a page the prior prior page and next page where that same thing is mentioned are given. This allows you to easily trace a person or place through 31000 years of history. The Gems of Power in my campaign are ancient items and I've used the GHR to provide explanation of what they are, what they are for, and why they are significant to the current time.

I picked up The Grand History of the Realms last year. It's a fairly extensive catalogue, intricate and compiled well. This being among the references you are using for this campaign is very promising. Time travel in fantasy is always fun. (And sometimes a little messy!) I also have Underdark, which I thought was one of the better Third Edition splat books.

In the other thread, you had mentioned how your OC make-over contributions have been well received, but you felt King's Festival and Queen's Harvest were superior. I'm a big fan of your Make-overs from a design philosophy point of view, that is, making the Offical Campaigns more like Storm of Zehir. But personally, I always enjoy the original works of authors and brand new adventures. So I agree, your best efforts have been KF + QH, and will no doubt include Gems of Power.

Look forward to having the opportunity to play.

Harumph!

Modifié par Dorateen, 16 octobre 2011 - 04:14 .

[M. Rieder]

Kaldor Silverwand wrote...

Im going to try to release chapter 1 this year, but there are more areas than I originally planned so it may take longer. It depends in part on how easily I can find and tailor areas in the vault to meet my needs. 

Regards

Yeah, I'm there right now.  TWA2 was supposed to be done about 10 months ago.  Keep plugging.  We'll still be here to play it when you release.

[Kaldor Silverwand]

PJ156 wrote...

Kaldor Silverwand wrote...

Im going to try to release chapter 1 this year, but there are more areas than I originally planned so it may take longer.

Whats areas are you missing that you might be seeking prefabs for?

Not sure yet. I also haven't perused the vault areas lately. I'm not good at area design myself though, so I will be using whatever I can. The traveling in the first chapter will include both the Scarred Land areas and the Sword Coast areas. I'm hoping I can use the Baldur's Gate areas in the vault but I don't intend to use haks, so I may be somewhat limited. I will also need something for an underwater ruined city in Var the Drowned. I'll also need a few port cities since some of the traveling will be by boat. I'll know more about what I need in the coming weeks. 

Regards

[PJ156]

I have Leilon on my hard drive (see my other post) You are welcome to that.

When you decide on the other stuff I have an area or two you might want. It will all go up as prefabs eventually but I need to strip them back before I do that and I am not going to put those hours in until I am complete.

PJ

[Kaldor Silverwand]

Thanks for the offer. That would be great. Right now I am documenting all of the possible travel paths so that I can determine where it is best to insert other areas. I want to have a good mix of critical and optional exterior areas. For example, a small town that you have to pass through on the road between two major cities might have a completely optional adventure or two.

Regards

[M. Rieder]

How are you going to handle the underwater areas? Are you going to use the scripts from the CSL or other scripts. Also, how are you going to handle magic use? I am interested because in my next venture I am interested in making an underwater area and I'm trying to figure out how I'm going to set everything up.

[kamal_]

As with my release of the areas I made for Path of Evil, I will be releasing the areas of Crimmor. That should help give you a good selection of urban areas to choose from.

[Shaughn78]

I haven't look through the CSL for underwater scripts, but I have a drowning script that starts and stops with enter and exit. A heartbeat checks for drowning, x rounds plus constitution bonus, then fortitude save and damage on fail. It also destroys all equipped torches on enter and checks on HB so a player can't equip a new one. I can't remember, but I think I also gave a permanent slow effect when under water.

I did nothing with spells. It is a small area with a single encounter so the work to change spell effects seems a bit much. I am guessing that a spellhook on fire spells would be used to make them fail, also add a bit of fun and destruction to electric spells.

[Kaldor Silverwand]

A lot of good ideas here. Thanks.

The underwater area I will use is a ruined city described in the FRCG as having air filled buildings and caverns. So while it will be under the surface the majority of the time the characters would still be within air filled areas. I thought I could use some visual effects to give it an underwatery look, but modifying spells and scripts seems like a lot to do for one area of the campaign. I'll consider it though.

Regards

[painofdungeoneternal]

My system is pretty comprehensive for underwater. It works via triggers set to a given height, so you can have a lake and the dwarf drowns first, but everyone else is ok if the water is shallow. So it handles fording a river but also an ocean.

It affects torches, and i keep track if you are wet.

Breathing time allowed is per PNP rules + whatever dunniteowl adjusted to a large degree. At the end i do a count down, which seems to scare players about as badly as real drowning will.

Allows contiguous triggers and areas, so you go under water by walking into the water, transition to a large underwater area, then exit that area to another area, it correctly keeps you underwater and holding your breath the entire time.

Triggers called air pockets exist underwater.

All spells are modified, those with verbal components are going to affect your breathing time, and fire spells follow the rules for being impeded. Durations for fire type spells are reduced on category, so turns becomes rounds, rounds becomes seconds, hours becomes turns, days becomes hours. I can't really describe all the work done for this, but it is pretty in depth.

Air bubble triggers, when you are in them you regain a round of breathing time, and they can be used to get across underwater areas. These only work when not in combat.

Got some work done on creature AI but it's still pretty basic at this point, eventually after i get the AI tamed i should be able to make sharks behave better. Things like fire elementals will refuse to enter water bodies, but its an area i need to improve still.

Spells and items, water breathing, aqualung using that acme helmet of the jules verne diving mask can be used. Water genasi are immune. I also have it mainly affect players as NPC's don't have the AI to react appropriately, nor is every module set up for this. I am assuming creatures in an underwater area will all be fishes or undead, or others not affected. This is more my not wanting to adjust every blueprint to add a water breathing feat than anything else and is easy to adjust.

( oh and hellfire implemented swimming and the scripting for those was done by me, so it is definitely compatible with what i am doing, and he did a great skydome for it as well )

My underwater area looks pretty wet as well.

[The Fred]

That does look pretty cool.

Only problem with underwater stuff is that I think different people have differing view on how it should be done. Obviously if you are the mod builder you can just make it how you want it, but if you want to fine-tune all the details it's going to be a lot of work.

Still, this all sounds pretty neat, whatever you decide to do with it.

[Lugaid of the Red Stripes]

I'd like to suggest cropping a bit of the Ocmulgee Caverns area for your underwater ruined city, either from the Danaan Unvanquished mod linked below or from the Wassau prefab.

[Kaldor Silverwand]

 @pain: Your underwater shots look great. Really great.  My initial thought had been that entry to the underwater ruins would be through a tower window poking above the waves. Then you descend the inside of the tower and navigate from building to building via the air filled caverns beneath them.  But your visuals tempt me to have places where the only way to get from one building to another would be to go through the water.

There is also an underwater area I had considered adding as an optional side-adventure. That area wouldn't have the advantage of air pockets, and so your scripts make more sense for that.  Do you require any haks? I'd rather avoid using haks.

@Lugaid: Thanks for the suggestion. I'll definitely take a look.

Regards