So a lot of new updates since the last blog, which was last updated coincidentally when we started work on these new ideas in late September.

We were all very excited by the direction of Arabel: Winterfront's storyline. The idea was a mystical storm surrounding the city, cutting Arabel off from the outside world and a change to do some epic feeling events with existential danger for the city. But you can't keep that 'existential threat' going forever, it led to some big changes in settlements and old familiar areas destroyed for good but eventually the heroes found a way to resolve the danger.

The best part for the DM team was that the idea on how to resolve the crisis was really a player driven idea, it wasn't what we had planned for at all. Though, I can't lie and say I'm kind of happy you all didn't follow the storyline that was going to result in the destruction of Arabel itself, the rebuilding of the entire city was going to be soooo hard but it was a possibility for sure after the outcome of a few events in November.

But now we're on to a new storyline, we're maybe even more excited by the prospects of Arabel: Nocturne. The Underdark is probably a favorite setting for almost all of us, its bizarre and creepy. So the new storyline, while keeping Arabel the center of the story, is going to focus heavily on the Underdark.

We've built since November a large number of new Underdark areas, over 30 new monsters to populate it. Behind the design were two aspects that thrilled me. One, we got to reuse the ideas from our original Underdark areas created over a decade ago by Strawman, and two, we leaned way into the weird and creepy nature of the Underdark. The lower it goes, the stranger it should get down there.

So with the new storyline, we're reintroducing underdark races for player applications; this includes drow, duergar, and svirneblin. Full details on their powers/stats will come up soon, they're adjusted a little for our setting.

We're not stopping there, two new quests can be found in the Underdark already, and two more new quests for the Underdark are in Beta testing stages right now.

The new ANCS (Arbitrarily Named Crafting System) is rolling out. Blacksmithing is done, leatherworking and carving are getting organized to go in, and alchemy and wondrous item crafting is coming down the pipe.

Since September we've added 8 new quests: Azer's Caves, Bronzeworks, Mother of Monsters, Hell Farm, the Leviathan, Chitines, Haunted Painting, Underground Vault.

And updates to 10 quests: Graveyard Ops, Hullack Hall, King's Forest Bandits, Maela's Monsters, Pride of Arabel, Raging Elementals, Saprophyte Infestation, Sirine's Sister, Silence of the Lambs, and Wrath of Hateful Child

With the receding of the Storm (do note receding, not ending - it takes time for power that immense to dissipate after all) we've been able to do some rebuilds of existing areas with an eye toward making them more content packed and fun to explore.

The Hullack Forest has been rebuilt, with plans for another area to be added to it soon.

The entire Moonsea Ride has been rebuilt, three areas of road that just led to a big desert didn't really fill us all with excitement, so now there is just one area of road that'll be a little quicker to walk through to get to an entirely rebuild Stonelands area (keeping some of the fun and amazing dungeons out there though). The two quests that were in the Rhimebound City, that has mysteriously disappeared, were repurposed for the Stonelands; so there's more to do there now.

We'll continue the effort to revamp and rebuild areas to make it quicker to get from point A to B, putting quests closer together but still leaving plenty of space to explore and lore/history to uncover.

And honestly, that's not even scratching the tip of the iceberg for what we have planned and going on! So we're looking for your input, ideas, and suggestions to help us keep motivated in bringing you the best NWN experience we can provide.

If there's something you want to hear about, let us know.

Last night we announced the results of this competition where Zerelstria had received the most amount of Azure Diamonds over the month long span. Starting last night via IG event and over the coming few weeks you will start to see the impact of this choice play out IG.

A few things of note that the DM team wants to share with players.

Just because your side didn't "win", does not mean your effort goes to waste. This was not an all or nothing competition, for players that made an effort supporting other causes and made things fun for other players your efforts won't go to waste. We want to remind everyone that this is a storytelling avenue, we want you to feel that your efforts can have an impact on the server around you.

The spawning of Azure Diamonds will be paused for the short term, we want to use this time to collect feedback and improve the system for the next time around. We will bring this system back in a few weeks, but we want to make sure we continue to improve it.

Please share feedback with the team, what did you like about the system? Is it too long? To few diamonds spawning? Didn't like the options of results where you could donate diamonds? If you could create your ideal faction to submit your diamonds what reward would YOU like to see?

Additional follow-up on the survey:

We want to make sure all our players understand that the game world is affected by player choices and stories, we may drop down story hooks or plots - but rarely have any idea how we'll wrap it up because we want to see what players do.

But that wasn't entirely clear to our player base when we looked at survey results. We think its a communication issue. So we hope this will help clarify how to approach us to collaborate!

How to affect the game world, DM storylines, and get support to push your own ideas!

@Mr-Moloch Last day, please fill out the survey if you haven't. :)

If you haven't contacted me about this yet, please do, going to start working with everyone involved to shape the storyline and plot. Hope to really start in about two weeks.

Prestige Updates for the last 30 days.

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Justiciars eked out another top this month, Immersea has continued to appease the dragon, Bospir holds firmly to spreading faith.

But can you keep the Pyre lit as its added to the Prestige bounties for the next month? Or will the storm creep every closer.