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Markustay
Realms Explorer extraordinaire
USA
15724 Posts |
 Posted - 09 Feb 2017 : 18:06:08
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Originally posted by sleyvas
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Originally posted by Markustay
No, I know. I just can't help making fun of the name (having grown-up watching the Super Friends cartoon in the 70's).
It is just SO tempting to write-up a group of Paladins working for the place... An amazon from Ixinos, and Avariel (and maybe his wife), a quickling, a mage with an artifact ring, a psionic Triton, etc, etc...
Damn you Markustay..... now you infected me, and I won't be able to get that out of my head all day. A fighter/mage/eldritch knight with a cloak of the bat, <snip>
And his trusty halfling thief sidekick, Corby...
quote:
Originally posted by sleyvas
Con't... a couple of young twin druids...
Half-elven druids, and their House-broken Su-monster...
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"I have never in my life learned anything from any man who agreed with me" --- Dudley Field Malone
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Ari
Acolyte
40 Posts |
Posted - 11 Feb 2017 : 18:19:04
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quote:
Originally posted by Markustay
I don't want you to think I hadn't noticed this -
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Originally posted by Ari
Markustay, would you mind giving me/us the gist of this locale? Even if just a link to where you've already gotten into more detail about it years ago.
In order to do it justice, I want to make sure I have that region 'up to speed'; in other words, any lore I write for it I want to make sure doesn't contradict anything in 4e and 5e as well (even though I had originally written it up for 2e/3e). I've only purchased the 4e Neverwinter Guide today, so I can now update my material for all editions... hopefully when I have some spare time. But in the interim, this is the basic gist of things -
In my 'travels' (geography research) I've come across another Waterdahvian Keep along the road north - Swordhold - located to the west of the High Road in the foothills of the Sword mountains. This was featured in LGR-17, and is about 2/3 the way north to Thornhold, which got me thinking... shouldn't such things be evenly spaced? Especially given the brilliant and somewhat anal attention to detail several of the Masked Lords are known to have had (at least, in years past)?
Thus, about a 1/3 of the way along the Sword mountains I created another keep right on the cliff-face over-looking the Sea of Swords called 'Grimsea'. Another minor reason for this placement was that older maps showed a road up to that point, but a trail beyond that point, so I felt something needed to be there to justify the change in road-types; I think all later maps (3e+) shows a road all the way to Neverwinter, so this didn't matter as much. The official name of the place is 'Seahold', and its designed to hold 60 troops normally (although it can easily house twice that in a pinch, but usually only has 40 troops present at the most).
The thing I wanted to write-up would use this new keep as a frame to do an article on how Waterdeep patrols its (actually very large) borders, including the route* troops take as the are cycled back to Waterdeep after being stationed away from the city (this duty is usually - but not always - considered a 'punishment' by those having to do it). All of this was inspired by some stuff I was working on with Eric Boyd at the time (having to do with the patrols that traveled south to Daggerford). Grimsea is never a fun place to be stationed, especially in the winter months, with ice forming on the Keep's walls, and the wind off the sea howling through the night, hence the name.
*Not-so-affectionately referred to as "the long road home" by troops having to do it. Troops are cycled-off to the next keep in groups of 20, every 30 days, so there are always fresh troops coming in, and older troops leaving.
"Another minor reason for this placement was that older maps showed a road up to that point, but a trail beyond that point, so I felt something needed to be there to justify the change in road-type"
I cannot even imagine BEGINNING to try and reconcile the various editions' differing maps. So much stuff just moves around or vanishes, that to me is the definition of a Quixotic quest.
And you can't even excuse it with "well, they don't really know the geography". People can just scry or look through the eyes of eagles or some similar nonsense.
But yeah, waystations and holdfasts are a great way to imply borders and spheres of influence. The mismatch of naming means it can be a little iffy trying to figure out the region a locale is in just from the name(never thought I'd miss Westeros' all-English placenames), so these new ones being in English is a good measure. Like how Dwarven citadels and "castles" all have 'bar' at the end of their name.
And Markustay, a Justice League ripoff in Neverwinter would be perfect for its Golden Age under the ancien regime. Also it desperately needs a wind elemental bound to a helmed horror. It's always been a cosmopolitan place. Though Waterdeep might be better for the superhero riffs since it's basically New York and has remained more or less stable. Neverwinter is more like Montreal or Toronto.
(That's a deadly insult to one of those. Depends which you're from!)
The Fake Crown of Neverwinter being a known while also known as fake while the Lost Crown of Neverwinter being totally lost does make sense. My issue is more how the "real" Crown as written just kills you. The Fake Crown drives you mad because it,s sabotaged, but the real one was designed to be lethal. That seems at odds with Neverwinter's existing themes of preserving life and peace in the inhospitable and brutal North, where Luskan is more what you'd expect a city in such grim conditions to be like. If you're not a "true heir", why doesn,t the Crown just not work? That seems more in keeping since it operates in tandem with "human" ability, like how the Neverwinter River would just be an unusually warm river without mortal ingenuity using it to establish a viable trading port. Without existing talent or legitimacy the magic is useless.
On additional topics, I re-read the NCS book to check that it was in fact just called "Neverwinter River", which is some Gift of the Nile business, and again there's no old signs of having been a kingdom! No ancestral holdings, no fortresses in the Crags, no ghost towns in the High Forest, not even attempted rebuilding of Sharandar prior to the Fewilde immigration. And scattering random ruins around would even make perfect sense! But the only ones are Gauntlgrym and Xinelal of Netheril, even Sharandar is just a place people stole old carvings of naked elves from.
So if Neverwinter was the center of a kngdom just a hundred years ago, where would you put the old good stuff? I like a butt-huge castle in the Mere of Dead Men, because making Monty Python references never gets old when the DM does it. |
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"King" of Neverwinter
