The Legend of the Defender

3 - Mission to Rayche, Sanctum: The Modules

I was thinking that players might enjoy a story “teaser” from the next chapter. Here’s the text of a book of lore found in Sanctum of the Archmage 3: The Miracle Worker, Act II — Mission to Rayche, titled “The Legend of the Defender.”

The Legend of the Defender

Many thousands of years ago, a great war between the Gods and the Demons came to the world. The Demons had opened a door from the realms of hell itself, and their armies threatened to overrun the earth. In those ancient times most of the world was wild and unsettled, with the exception of two great centers of civilization. These were the Kingdom of Nuracinth (now the Northern Plains), which was ruled by humans; and the realm of Eldacinth (now the lands of Elde and Carlissa), shared by the elves and faeries.

The world then was still under the active protection of the Gods, and the army of Heaven prepared to meet the Hordes of Hell in battle. The races of the time were asked to fulfill their oaths of obedience to the Gods and to stand beside them in the Great War. Although men have long forgotten them, the elves still remember The Faeries, who commanded powerful magic but refused the Gods’ call. They retreated to the land of Faerie, and wove the sparkling curtain around it to forever cut themselves off from the rest of the world.

The other races were afraid and hesitated to fight. The Demon Horde began to ravage their lands and many were killed, until the Goddess Tianth finally saw and took pity on their fears. She appeared to Calindra, a simple warrior woman from Rayche whose spirit was true to the Gods and filled with courage and faith in The Divine. She spoke words of hope to her, and gave to her The Shield of the Defender, allegedly forged from a shard of the goddess’ own heart.

Inspired, Calindra rallied the elves and men of the time to stand with the Army of Heaven, and they met the Horde in the heart of Nuracinth. The Kingdom was devastated by the war and remained barren for a thousand years, and even now only the hardiest of nomads can survive there. But the Army of Heaven prevailed, and Calindra — protected by the magic of the Shield — herself slew the Captain of the Horde. Thus the Demons were driven forever from the face of the earth.

Over the next thousand years the Gods left the world to return to the Heavens. Before they left, they established the Church of the Divine as a covenant with those who had shown their faith by standing with them in the Great War. They promised that they would always hear and answer the prayers of their clerics, who to this day wield the magic of the Divine in the Gods’ name. Because of this covenant, the races of men and elves have become known as The Children of the Gods, or simply The Children for short.

The Kingdom of men had been devastated by the Great Battle, and in its aftermath the rulers of the lesser realms that remained vied for dominance. Calindra had become a hero among The Children, and she tried to use her influence to help unite them into a new great kingdom. But the leaders and statesmen of Ancient Nuracinth were gone, and the rulers who remained were men of lesser stature. They tried to use Calindra to their own advantage, and to expand their power by drawing her into their petty wars and intrigues.

Dismayed, Calindra eventually left them to return to her homeland of Rayche, there to wander the countryside as an adventurer. She vanished from the knowledge of history, her final fate unknown, and the shield vanished with her. But according to the legend, it still lies somewhere in the world, in the last resting place of Calindra the Defender. And it waits for the day when its power will be called upon once again to strengthen the hearts of the people against a great evil.

Copyright 2010 by Anthony Donadio. All Rights Reserved.

 

Sanctum 1-2 Version 3.4 Now Available!

1 - The Sight, 2 - The Quest

After some last-minute tweaks, the Sanctum of the Archmage version 3.4 update is finally online, and the Vault pages have been updated to include the new links. The major change, as I’ve blogged about recently, was the addition of Chico400’s NWNCQ, which significantly upgrades the appearance of the Bioware default tilesets. The update also contains a number of additional features (including some new high-quality player-selectable heads, some new special abilities for Robin, and some new items), and of course a number of bugfixes.

Here are a couple of new screenshots to whet your appetite (for more, see my earlier blog post here):

The North Forest

The Ancient Ruins

The Underdark

Sanctum 1&2 v3.4 Beta (Now Final) Release

1 - The Sight, 2 - The Quest

UPDATE 9/22/2010: My schedule’s gotten busy this week, so I’ll probably have to postpone updating the Vault pages until the weekend. However, v3.4 (final) is available in the meantime from the links below for anyone who’s already installed v3.3.

– Andarian

Here’s a pre-release beta for version 3.4 of Sanctum chapters 1 and 2, for anyone who’d like to try it out. It only contains the updated parts and assumes you already have all the components needed to play version 3.3. Once I have feedback from a couple of test players that it all seems to be OK, I’ll upload the new version to the module page.

Sanctum v3.4 Beta Final Release

You’ll also need the following NWNCQ haks from here:

NWNCQ Hak
NWNCQ Patch Hak

And the updated “Patch Hak” from here: 

Sanctum v3.4 “Patch Hak”

The update affects both chapters, although it has more of an effect on chapter 1 because it uses more of the baseline NWN tiles that NWNCQ revamps. There are a few bugfixes and a couple of new features to look for, including a new entry on Robin’s “special ability” list that may come in handy. There are also about a dozen new hi-res player heads now available, chosen from Salt’s Female Head and Estelindis’ KOTOR Head packs.Also, make sure to check out the “cape-making” and cloak-to-armor conversion ability of the Cloak of Flying if you haven’t already. It’s been in there since v3.2, but I found and fixed a serious bug with it that made the cape feature disappear once you’d converted it

.

I hope you enjoy the update — let me know what you think! – Andarian

A Pre-Update on Sanctum 3

3 - Mission to Rayche

Aderyn recently asked: “By the way, how is the Sanctum 3 going now? Please update soon!”

Sorry to keep you in suspense! The reason I haven’t updated in a while is that there are a few things that I’m currently working on that I want to complete before doing so. In particular, Estelindis and I have been developing some very unique new custom content for the module. When it’s ready for screenshots I think you’ll find it was worth the wait. 😉

An NWNCQ Makeover for Sanctum 1?

1 - The Sight

I recently became aware of an extraordinary new hak for Neverwinter Nights: NWNCQ by Chico400. It revamps virtually the entirety of Bioware’s default tileset assets, giving them a whole new look with stunningly higher quality.

Most of my first module, Sanctum of the Archmage 1, The Sight, was built using the standard Bioware tilesets. It took me all of a thirty seconds to open that module and add NWNCQ to the bottom of the hak list. After another few minutes to do a rebuild, the look of the module had been dramatically transformed. I’ve been playing it this afternoon, and it gives the module a whole new visual experience. Aside from needing a few relatively minor tweaks to get the look just right, it was very easy to do.

NWNCQ increases the quality of the default tilesets by replacing them with higher definition (higher-poly-count) models and better textures. The replacements are well thought out with often original designs that are built to still be compatible with areas made using the original versions. Among other very welcome things, it finally adds ceilings to many of the Bioware tilesets that needed them (City Interior, Ruins, Caverns, etc.). It makes Blackwing Lodge actually look more like a lodge now, to say nothing of the Ancient Ruins. 😉

Because of all this I’m thinking of taking a short break from working on Sanctum 3 to release another update to my first two modules, mainly to enable using NWNCQ. The update would mostly affect Sanctum 1, although while I’m at it I’d also make a few additional updates to go along with it — such as adding skyboxes to Sanctum 1 and some additional high-quality head models to give players a better selection.

Here are some screenshots to show what I mean:

City Interior (Bioware Default)City Interior (Bioware)

City Interior (NWNCQ)City Interior (NWNCQ)

Blackwing Lodge (NWNCQ)Blackwing Lodge (NWNCQ)

A Picnic by the Lake (NWNCQ + Skybox)A Picnic by the Lake (NWNCQ)

Continuing Sanctum in NWN1 vs. DA

Dragon Age, The Alliance, The Miracle Worker

Shuurai recently offered the following thoughts about continuing the Sanctum saga in Neverwinter Nights as opposed to Dragon Age. Since they might be of general interest, I thought I would post my own thoughts on that here.

“Just to throw it out there, I too think it’d be cool if the entire series was kept in NWN1. Despite the age of the engine and it’s limitations, I personally find the interface to be much better than NWN2 and even Dragon Age. That said, the most important thing (to me) is the story, and I think this one will be strong no matter what the platform.”

I very much appreciate the kind words about the story (thanks, Shuurai!). This is an issue that I’ve been torn about since the first module came out — first with NWN2, and then with Dragon Age. As some of you may know, I was fortunate enough to have had the opportunity last year to be invited by Bioware to participate in the Dragon Age toolset beta and Builder’s Event. So I’m very familiar with what Dragon Age has to offer the series, and I’ve been very impressed with it from the beginning. I think it was designed much more for the kind of story-based modding that I’m trying to do with the series than was NWN, and that I could do a great deal more with it as a result.

So to be honest I really would prefer to switch to Dragon Age as soon as possible, for that as well as other reasons. For example I do strongly prefer the interface and game design, and the Sanctum world never has really fit well with the D&D ruleset. But I’m in the awkward position of being in the middle of the saga and having a lot invested in building the mods in NWN1, including an established player and fan base there. Those are things that I can’t just disregard.

If I come into enough free time or can recruit enough DA collaborators to help, then I may port Sanctum 2 to DA as a test. If that’s successful I could then port the rest of Part II (“The Miracle Worker”) as well. I think I could handle that for DA-only players by including a video “prologue” telling the story of Part I (“The Sight”). If that works out then I’d end up with Part I as a NWN1 only mod, Part III (“The Alliance”) as DA only, and Part II ported to both.

Either way, though, I don’t plan on building “The Alliance” in NWN1. But I also really don’t want to stop building in NWN1 until the end of “The Miracle Worker”. That’s when the story will reach a point where I can at least give NWN1-only players a sense of closure with the series, even though it will be continued in “The Alliance.”

And, I hope, in a series of novels to pick up the story after that. From the beginning, the Sanctum modules were intended mainly as an experiment on my part: a way of exploring the new medium of CRPG modding as a means of telling the backstory to those novels. So with any luck, it’ll be a long time before I have to commit to giving folks a full sense of closure with the saga as a whole. 🙂

Companions vs. Henchmen

3 - Mission to Rayche

A player asked me the following regarding a recent post about my plans for Sanctum 3. I thought it might be of general interest, so I decided to re-post it here.

  • “A question if I may, what do you mean by three companions and five henchmen?”

This is probably my own terminology more than anything else, but by “companions” I mean long-term party members who are tied to the overall plot. In Sanctum, that’s Robin, Orion, and Diana. By “henchmen” I mean party members who join or are “hired” mainly for combat support and story flavor on a specific quest or quests. Since I made you leave one of your three companions behind near the end of Chapter 2 (and don’t worry, you’ll see them again in Chapter 4), I felt that it would be a good idea to let you be able to “hire on” some temporary help in Chapter 3 if you need it. There will be five such “henchmen” available in different areas and for different quests. Although they’re intended to be more “henchmen” than full “companions,” they’ve already developed very vivid personalities in my mind that I want to try to translate into the module as well. Two of them will also be potential (though not long-term) romance options (one male, one female).

Sanctum 3 Designed

3 - Mission to Rayche

I just wanted to post a quick update on the progress of Sanctum 3. I’ve been alternating between design work and technical integration to make the module compatible with Project Q, and I’m pleased to be able to report that both of those tasks are basically done now.

A lot of basic 2DA and Hak work was needed to make the new module compatible with both its previously existing custom content (including CEP 2.2), and Project Q. This was a big job, and while it had several very tedious parts to it, it turned out not to be as bad as I’d feared. The worst part was moving some of the conflicting phenotypes to new numbers, which required a lot of editing and renaming of individual files. Now that it’s done, I’ll be able to combine features from Sanctum Chapters 1-2, CEP, and Project Q.

I’ve also been working feverishly for the past month or so to complete a comprehensive design write-up for the module’s quests, areas, and custom content. With that done, I now have a clearer idea of what the scope of Sanctum 3 will be, as well as some material that I can give to collaborators. To give a hint at the scope, the current design comes out at:

  • twenty-two quests
  • sixty-six areas
  • three companions
  • five henchmen
  • five romances

I’m also happy to report that I now have two confirmed members of the Sanctum Team, one of whom is the very talented Estelindis. You may know her from her NWN1 CC work, and as the creator of the new custom heads for Orion, Diana and Robin in Sanctum v3.2. She’s going to be helping with some very special custom content for the next chapter, which if it works out as we hope should be really terrific. Aderyn has agreed to join the playtesting team, and several others have expressed interest in helping as well.

So barring complications, the pace of development on the saga should be ramping up substantially in the near future. I’ll keep you all posted. 😉