* * * Wizards Community Thread * * * -=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=- Thread : Shadow Elves of Undrentide Started at 04-08-05 12:45 AM by Joe Mason Visit at http://forums.gleemax.com/showthread.php?t=409816 -=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=- [Post 1] Author : Joe Mason Date : 04-08-05 12:45 AM Thread Title : Shadow Elves of Undrentide SPOILERS - Neverwinter Nights: Shadows of Undrentide, GAZ13: The Shadow Elves In the Ravenloft thread I mentioned that I don't like the Forgotten Realms very much. I don't hate it, I just find it kind of boring. So when I'm playing computer games set there, I spice things up by pretending my character is from a more interesting world and is just passing through. For instance, in the single player Neverwinter Nights, I made a fighter specializing in katana and pretended he was a samurai that had been cast out of Rokugan. Since the game isn't world-spanning, there's no problem pretending the bits of the Realms we see and Rokugan are on the same planet and only separated in space. It let me pretend my character had a little more background, but didn't add that much to the game. When I finally got Shadows of Udrentide a while ago, I decided to play a character from Mystara. Specifically, a Shadow Elf. I made a half-elf Rogue named "Megan Ximenaga", gave her silver-gray skin, set "Subrace" to "Shadow Elf", deity to "Rafiel" and made up a character background: Megan's mother was from the City of the Stars, and her father was a captured human. They fell in love and she helped him escape and exiled herself to the human world above. She always missed her homeland, though, and she secretly taught Megan the Way of Rafiel and told her stories about the distant caverns. Now that Megan's parents are dead, she has decided to find the clan she heard so much about, but she has no idea where the caverns actually are. I figured this background wouldn't interact too much with the game, and I'd have to pretend either the Shadow Elves are very well hidden or Megan's parents wandered to a very distant land, but it made the character a little more interesting to play. Little did I know that this background actually works beautifully with the plot of Shadows of Udrentide. The game opens with the PC serving as an "apprentice adventurer" to a wizard in the remote village of Hillsfar. This wizard is training students in generic adventuring skills. The students' motives vary: some are openly after power, some want to become treasure hunters, while others want to do good deeds and help people. I decided that Megan came here because although her father was a retired adventurer, he had settled down into a quiet life so she wasn't yet prepared for the arduous journey she expects to find her homeland. Hillsfar is attacked by kobolds (yeah, not very menacing) who manage to poison the wizard and steal four dangerous artifacts he was hiding in order to keep them out of evil hands. The dying wizard charges the PC, his most promising student, to find out who is behind the theft and return the artifacts. Megan would go along with this - while her main goal is to find rumours of the Shadow Elves, she has made friends in Hillsfar and likes her mentor, so she would want to avenge the destruction and make sure she doesn't leave them facing a threat when she starts her own quest. The PC can choose one other student to go with them. Megan chooses a half-orc Barbarian/Sorceror named Xanos. They make a great team: Xanos is arrogant, greedy and openly plans to build up his own power to become a world conqueror. He's not completely cardboard, though - there are occasional hints that he's not really after power for its own sake, he has some deeper trauma and is trying to get into a position where nobody else can have power over him. Megan seems like his opposite - she is decent,generally friendly but somewhat reserved, and cares little for personal gain. She only wants enough to be sure she has the resources she needs. However, she was brought up to be secretive and not trust society: her mother constantly whispered to her, "You are not like these people. You are only living here briefly - one day, you'll go back to your own kind, deep underground. Trust in Rafiel - Rafiel will guide you. His Way may seem cruel and dark to outsiders, but it is the only Way. Follow the Way, and Rafiel will guide you." So she is less perturbed by Xanos's megalomania than others - he shows on the surface what she feels inside: outcast. Creature of the underworld. Follower of a dark path, but a misunderstood one. Megan and Xanos set out to follow the fleeing kobolds. Before leaving Hillsfar, they encounter a caravan of halfling gypsies who are recovering from the attack. The halflings say that they will soon leave the mountains for a hard but profitable journey to distant lands across the desert, and Megan obtains a promise to hire on as a caravan guard. She is thinking ahead - joining the caravan seems like a good way to learn more about the world, and travel further afield if she cannot find her people in this region. However, the Halflings are still recovering from their wounds, so she has plenty of time to continue her current quest before they leave. The halflings have a fortune teller who offers to look into Megan's future. Megan believes in the value of omens - after all, her mother has told her that Rafiel guides the path of the wanders. Perhaps He will reveal Himself through this halfling, or perhaps He expects her to follow whatever sign is set before her, no matter its source - or perhaps this is nothing, but in that case it will waste only time. The gypsy shows her a vision of the enemy who seeks the four evil artifacts, but it is confusing and dim: all she can make out is that the enemy appears Elvish. Cursed Elves! Megan's mother told her many times that she lives on the surface only thanks to the love of her human father, but the bulk of her people are confined below ground thanks to the oppression of the surface elves. This is the first time Megan has run afoul of elves, and it is uncertain whether the omen is even valid, but her prejudices lead her to assume the worst. Megan and Xanos track the kobolds through the wilderness, and come upon a battlefield - a group of gnolls ambushed them and stole one of the artifacts. A group of kobolds fled northward, and some of the others escaped and took refuge in a nearby ruin. Megan and Xanos follow, and discover a buried Elven tomb. Historical markers list the history of this place: it was once a great underground Elven city, but those who lived here turned to evil. In the end, it was destroyed in a civil war as some of the corrupted Elves repented of their evil ways. It is now the burial place of the honoured dead, Elves who perished fighting their own evil and through this sacrifice redeemed themselves. Megan is intrigued. The Elves buried here do not seem at all like those she has heard stories about: they live under stone and were oppressed by evil. They hold many similarities to the Shadow Elves, but none of the details fit. There are no histories of the founding of this city, only its fall - were these Elves driven here by their greedy kin who wished to hoard all the forests? Or did they find their own affinity for stone? Megan meets the shades of the tomb guardians, and they have pale skin and hair - there is little resemblance beyond the Elvish features. She decides the similarities are mere coincidence, but still she feels a kinship with those buried here, and wanders the haunted halls without fear, to Xanos's amazement. When the guardians ask her to clear out the kobolds and other creatures who have infested the tomb, she helps them willingly. Although Megan is not afraid of the tomb's guardians, she is having trouble battling the more mundane threats in the aea, so she takes two levels of Ranger. This gives her extra hit points and fighting skills, and will help her in travelling the wilderness, which she expects to do a lot of. (It makes sense for her to gain this now, since she has just been doing a lot of tracking and fighting.) Although she has no quarrel with the people who lived here, they are long dead and their history makes it clear they were exceptional: she still believes that Surface Elves in general are the Shadow Elves' enemies, and that they are behind the theft she is investigating, so she takes Elf as her Favoured Enemy. Megan and Xanos slaughter the kobolds who have taken refuge here and recover one of the artifacts, a mummy's hand. They discover that one of the kobolds has escaped with another, a tower figurine. The third artifact, a black mask, was taken northward by the second group of kobolds that fled the battle, and the fourth, a dragon's tooth, is in the hands of the gnolls. Leaving the tomb, they track down the escaped kobold, who is hiding in the forest nearby but no longer has the figurine. He reveals that the kobolds serve a white dragon living in the mountains to the north, and that he serves as the dragon's jester. He ran away because he made a terrible fumble and broke the tower statue! He is afraid that the dragon will eat him for his error, so he has hidden the statue somewhere nobody but he can find it. He will give it to you if you travel north and kill the dragon for him, or at least persuade it to release him from its service. Megan tries to trick the location out of the kobold, but its paranoia has made it too cagey. So she and Xanos travel north into the mountains, and eventually find their way down through the kobold caves into the dragon's lair. The dragon speaks with them instead of eating them immediately, and reveals that the raid on Hillsfar was planned in concert with a mysterious sorceress who had visited it, who was interested only in the tower and allowed the dragon to keep the other three artifacts in return for its help. The sorceress was, indeed, an elf - but it "smelled different" somehow. The dragon is now annoyed - the sorceress broke their deal by having her gnoll minions attack the kobolds to try to steal all the artifacts, and the one artifact that was returned succesfully - a mask - is useless, as the dragon cannot awaken its power. It offers a deal: find and slay the sorceress, and bring proof of her death, and the dragon will grant one favour. (I tried this conversation several times by reloading the game, and it seems like you can get it to either give you the mask, or release the kobold, which presumably makes the kobold give you the tower, but not both.) Megan is intrigued. Elves that "smell different"? Elves that are in league with gnolls? Elves that live in caves to the south? It's not clear if these caves were elven originally, or if this sorceress is merely living with the gnolls for some reason, but still - could she be a Shadow Elf? I was saying to myself, "Yeah, yeah, it's the drow again - but I'll just pretend I don't know that for a while." Turns out it wasn't the drow at all. Even though I still thought it was, this is the point where I really liked the way the game was going. All the interactions were clearly set up to let you align yourself with either the dragon or the sorceress, or to play them off against each other, or be all righteous and make no deals with either. Normally in situations like this I end up trying to choose the path which "optimizes" the game by making it easiest or letting me see the most of it or get the most treasure, but I feel really dirty because it feels like I'm playing mechanically. But in a CRPG where the plot doesn't feed back into your character background, what can you do? This time, though, the plot was feeding into my background: as Megan learned more about the mysterious elves and found they might be Shadow Elves, she tended to side with them. Megan accepts the dragon's offer, since she wants to investigate this sorceress anyway and she could always renege on the deal later. Xanos, for his part, is happy to have a powerful dragon as a patron, and immediately begins angling for a spot as an apprentice, though it's hard to tell how the dragon views the prospect. For her reward, Megan asks for the kobold's freedom, since she prefers the prospect of stealing the mask to being given the mask and then having to kill the dragon for the tower. (Besides, she kind of likes the little kobold, and feels it deserved it's freedom.) Then Megan and Xanos travel south, and eventually penetrate the gnoll caves and discover an ancient labyrinth beneath. It seems this is not the sorceress's home - she's merely here to search the ruins. Megan reaches the far side of the labyrinth and finds a door: she is sure the sorceress and her minions are just on the other side. Expectantly, she opens the door... In the hall beyond are a group of elves in strange armour, with helms and cowls hiding their faces, led by the sorceress. They don't look a bit like drow, so I'm happy and intrigued. They are surprised to see Megan, and impressed by how far she's come. When Megan reveals that the dragon has sent her for revenge, but she doesn't intent to go through with it, they become friendly. (After all, if she really was an enemy, she wouldn't have admitted that, would she?) They have come from far away, and are searching for ancient powers that will help them invade. They can't reveal their origin - it is a great secret - unless Megan proves herself worthy of their trust. They make her an offer: bring us the dragon's head and swear to join us, and we'll tell you our secrets and give you the dragon's tooth artifact (recall that they really only wanted the tower statue). Megan is delighted to agree - she's sure that these are the Shadow Elves at long last. I was half convinced myself - doesn't this sound exactly like them? She intends to do more than just trade the dragon's head for the dragon's tooth - she has decided, on the spot, to join them. The elves give her a magical potion that will turn her into a giant to fight the dragon. She and Xanos return to the mountains and, to make a long story short, kill the dragon, retrieve the mask, and come back to the gnoll caves. (With just a brief side stop to show the kobold that the dragon is dead so that they can retrieve the tower statue, in theory giving them all four artifiacts - except the kobold has disappeared and its hiding place has been ransacked. Now that Megan thinks, she may have let its location slip while talking to the dragon the first time. Oops.) Soon Megan finds herself face to face with the sorceress again, and gives her the dragon's head to prove her quest is complete. The sorceress thanks her and offers to answer her questions. Megan eagerly says, "So who are you really and where are you from?" The elf takes off her cowl... and reveals a face that couldn't look more different from Megan's and still be an elf. It's got golden skin and fiery hair. Megan is shocked and crushed. I'm shocked myself, in fact - I was still half expecting it to be the drow, and I was so into it that I had nearly convinced that it would really be a Shadow Elf if not. The elf reveals that the "faroff place" she comes from is in fact another plane of existence, and her race are actually half-elves - and half demon! Then she laughs and says that she only told Megan this because Megan already knows too much anyway - now she has to die. The demon elves attack... That's as far as I've gotten in the game, since I was getting really tired at that point and didn't feel like playing a huge battle. (So I still haven't found out if my racial bonus against elves affects them - god, I hope so.) But I'm really pleased with the way, by complete coincidence, Megan fits into the story of Shadows of Undrentide so far. Especially the way it toyed with her hopes and dreams. -=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=- [Post 2] Author : Hugin Date : 04-08-05 05:55 PM That's pretty cool how things worked with your backstory, Joe! Oh, to dream of a CRPG set in Mystara with real Shadow Elves and all those different cultural choices... Shhh... don't wake me up, I'm still dreaming... -=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=- [Post 3] Author : Joe Mason Date : 04-08-05 06:00 PM Well, there are various fan-made NWN modules set in Mystara. -=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=- [Post 4] Author : Rimx Date : 04-09-05 03:59 AM Unfortunately, it doesn't look like there's too much Mystara content(at least on the NW valts), though I'm hoping to help change that. -=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=- [Post 5] Author : Cthulhudrew Date : 04-09-05 04:23 AM There are a couple of conversions of OD&D adventures- the best I've seen so far is one that is a conversion of B1-9- some minor bugs in it, and I can't figure out how to activate the well that takes you down in Rahasia (Pah and Nwad don't seem to work for me), but it's pretty good. There are also some Mystara communities (or were) but they're inactive or just slow. I played on a Mystara server (Australia based, it's a persistent world under, IIRC, roleplay on gamespy), but aside from some elements of Karameikos the designers based it on, doesn't really have much of a Mystaran feel to it. Plus you see characters running around from all sorts of other game worlds. I would love to sit down and create a Mystara module for NWN- have started the planning stages for several, in fact- but it gets so overwhelming to me, that I always end up giving up (creating areas and doing all the scripting is just a pain to me- but then, I always plan big. I should probably try something small, first.) -=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=- [Post 6] Author : Joe Mason Date : 04-09-05 04:37 AM I would love to sit down and create a Mystara module for NWN- have started the planning stages for several, in fact- but it gets so overwhelming to me, that I always end up giving up (creating areas and doing all the scripting is just a pain to me- but then, I always plan big. I should probably try something small, first.) Ditto. I'd like to do this too, but I keep bouncing off the creation of simple modules - too much of a learning curve. It's like the old saying - lots of people who say they want to be a writer don't actually want to write, they want to have written. -=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=- [Post 7] Author : Cthulhudrew Date : 04-09-05 04:46 AM Speaking of Mystara NWN modules, I just noticed this (http://nwvault.ign.com/Files/modules/data/1109009827000.shtml) on the Neverwinter Vaults page. Someone's done an Epic level module conversion of M4: Twilight Calling. I'll probably check it out as soon as I finish the Eye of the Beholder mod I'm currently playing. With any luck, I might be near epic level. :) -=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=- Downloaded from Wizards Community (http://forums.gleemax.com) at 05-10-08 09:28 AM.