A Land Far Away

Well, a lot of time has passed since the start date for NWN2 was decided, and new canon material has been released. Since it seems I'm the only admin who gives a shat about such things, I thought I'd start a thread

I thought of having spider make a little timeline to show the changes which occured recently, but I'm not so sure thats needed. We've got a lot of time before ALFA2 would go live. So my question is, when would you all need to settle on a date? Wynna wanted to re-visit things when more canon was released, but we can always just wait longer if you want.

coach said he'd want the date to be around the end of the Year of Rogue Dragons I think, so that TCL had a war they could run, but the Dragonrage is over, so its not something ALFA-wide, either. Other than that I think the biggest big change to the servers in the proposals is Mistledale getting a bit torn up by demonfey, Hillsfar not basically being under Zhent control, and the elves start re-founding Cormanthyr. But all this happens in later 1374 I think...

Hoping spider will chime in. My personal preference would be that the elves in Cormanthor are a refreshing change compared to the old death-trap Myth Drannor and a forrest full of drow, but we don't have a Cormanthor proposal so it might be moot.

I guess we need to try to pick a date that serves most of the proposals as best we can.

Moved over to correct forum.

I don't think it is so much a matter of other Admin not giving a "shat", as it is a case of knowing common sense will look after the decision, and in due time. (There's going to be plenty of new canon between now and ALFA Live!)

the end of 1373/beginning of 1374 was just a preference because there is some pretty neat stuff going on in The Cold Lands at that time

but we (Team Cold Lands) are flexible and will go with whatever is decided with no gripes

I thought the proposal forum would be best, because it really only effected the people making a proposal, but yeah, your probably right. I'd prefer not to decide on anything now either, but I thought some servers may need to, particularly anyone building Mistledale. Frankly I've never understood the amount of planning which some people do before they even have the game in their hands, but it seems some people need to do it, so *shrugs*

Hmm, well, let's consider what's afoot as far as new FR source material between now and when we start building:

10/2006 - Road of the Patriarch (Sellswords, may interest Cold Lands, do not believe it goes further than 1374 DR)
09/2006 - The Twilight Tomb (FR adventure, based in Aglarond, no date provided as of yet)
09/2006 - Lies of Light (Book II in the Watercourse trilogy where a Watercourse/canal is being created to link the Inner Sea to the western seas of Faerûn's coast, may effect portals in the regions effected as far as where one can sail to and from to reach certain points)
08/2006 - Swords of Eveningstar (Set in the past, no effect on timeline)
08/2006 - Dragons of Faerûn (Details the events of Rogue Dragons and all things draconic)

While there are a few other products, none is of note (several older books reprinted, et cetera). So, I'd recommend starting simply at the end of the year 1374 DR, the end of the Last Mythal, where the elves have returned, as there will be no other large canon changes between now and when we start building.

What this means:

City of Shade has returned,

Phaerimm attack Evereska and Llorkh (other nearby places),

Shade nearly crashes into the desert,

Tilverton is destroyed,

Elminster has been through Hell and back,

the Silence of Lolth has came and gone,

Ched Nasad is destroyed and rebuilt by the half-shadow dragons who enginereed its downfall,

Menzo has repelled a fierce attack by the combined armies of the Scoured Legion and Gracklstugh,

the Monastery of the Yellow Rose sees much structural damage when a flight of dragons attacks it,

Sammaster is slain (again, he never quite stays dead) and the Cult of the Dragon severely decimated (again, it never quite stays dead),

much of Llorkh is destroyed by rampaging Thunderbeasts from the High Forest (the temple of Cyric there is reduced to rubble and the high priest slain just prior to this attack when he attempts to despoil the Unicorn Run with twisted magickar),

One of the twin towers of the eternal eclipse are stolen away by a power made ancient spellcaster to fuel a spell which causes Selune's largest tear to cause a long eclipse before plummeting toward Toril causing quite the scare, but burning up in the atmosphere and causing no notable damage in the end,

The Sothillisian Empire occupying the city of Murann in southern Amn forms a temporary truce and uneasy alliance of sorts with the nation of Amn when an army of angry stingers from Maztica attacks from the Underdark below, demanding the return of treasures plundered from far off Maztica, beginning the Stinger War (see Power of Faerûn) for details,

the Daemonfey free their legions from within the Nameless Dungeon, using the Gatekeeper crystal, and obliterating a large section of that ruin (High Forest)

an army of elves pushes the Daemonfey away from elven ruins within the vicinity of the High Forest and through a network of portals to Cormanthor,

the elven forces follow the Daemonfey to Cormanthor and find them facing off against more enemies than they expected Zhentil Keep, Hillsfar, and Sembia join the Daemonfey cause briefly causing much trouble for several southern dales (Mistledale and Deepingdale see the worst of it)

in the end the Daemonfey are destroyed utterly, the fiends are cast out of Myth Drannor, Sembia is now in much better standing with the elves and people of the Dalelands since they eventually joined the elven cause agains the Daemonfey, the elves retake Myth Drannor, Zhentil Keep marches on Hillsfar and demands annual tribute (no battle occurs, the lord of Hillsfar has gone into hiding after an attack on him within his city by the Daemonfey angry with him for not aiding the Zhentarim in a planned attack on Shadowdale and Mistledale).

That brings us up to date, though, I may have missed some tidbits.

A thought on the starting date.

Do we really want to start at 1374?

Ever since we started ALFA, we've been stuck in pretty much the same time frame the entire time. 1372 for years, than 1373.. sort of. Things just seem so frozen at times.

What if we started in, say, the 1350s or some such, than advanced at a somewhat regular pace so the world would move around us more?

Mike

I haven't read the first book the Watercours trilogy, but this is what the author mentions in an interview about it:

When I was working on the Threat from the Sea series with Mel Odom and Steven Schend, it was brought home that there is no way travel by boat from the Sea of Fallen Stars to the western oceans. It just seemed to me that a canal would be an obvious choice for anyone who made his living on the sea. That idea led to an even more careful study of the map, and ultimately that tiny little strip of land northeast of Innarlith between the Lake of Steam and the Nagaflow River just screamed out at me.

The sample chapter posted starts with the date "10 Kythorn, the Year of Lightning Storms (1374 DR)".

MShady wrote:A thought on the starting date.

Do we really want to start at 1374?

Ever since we started ALFA, we've been stuck in pretty much the same time frame the entire time. 1372 for years, than 1373.. sort of. Things just seem so frozen at times.

What if we started in, say, the 1350s or some such, than advanced at a somewhat regular pace so the world would move around us more?

Mike

I do like the idea of that, but it conflicts some with any plans for PCs to become NPCs in the regions you played in, et cetera. I'd prefer to start at 1368 DR than 1350, the canon start for 2nd edition (FR Adventures book), since I don't want to run the Time of Troubles, but...

I really don't want to see us deviate that far from canon as to what happened during those times, so I'd prefer to just start as far along in the timeline as possible.

I'd perfer we start at 1374, use all canon available, make our own as we go along, and perhaps add some large scale future canon events if possible.

Its 1373 in ALFA now, right? Now that the year moves with our own Calendar, ALFA would go live in what would be a few months into 1374 anyway.

Frankly I've never understood the amount of planning which some people do before they even have the game in their hands, but it seems some people need to do it, so *shrugs*

well for one example,

i took every FR source ever written and went through and compiled all Cold Lands canon info from each (missing only two sources that i know of) into one document ... 4 months

the team together played in a play-by-email DnD campaign set in 1350's (so we would learn the histories of the area and its main NPC's)... 2 months

illialid has been working on putting together a host server ... ? months

darrenfhx and aerthrin (before his hiatus to Japan) were working on maps, website, forums, artwork ... ? months

we all have been dabbling with map software trying to get a rough draft map in place before the game ships ... 2 months

all in all, yes, these could be worked on simultaneously and probably compressed into one or two months if we didn't have real lives to worry about

and i prefer not to start in the past

1) spidey mentioned the NWN NPC conversions
2) we would have to eventually move through time periods and canon events we have already played through once
3) new ALFANs could be confused (and old returning)
4) new ALFAn who also happen to be FR fans may have joined up because they have recently read the newer canon and want to join that FR setting/time