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Profile by Jay Watamaniuk

Have you ever played an NWN game that didn't suit your style or preferences? Registering your own Guild and crafting your own persistent world are sure ways to mould things to your tastes. This is what the founding members of the Fellowship of the Dragonsong did and they haven't looked back. Over two years and many hours of work later, they are the masters and commanders of a thriving guild and popular persistent world. To learn more about this great Fellowship of the Dragonsong community, we spoke with Guild Owner and Grand Empress Sugasweet, Head Builder TrentTinker, and Server Owner Aliktren Stoutbow.

Website in development:

http://www.zen77216.zen.co.uk/

Why did you want to run a persistent world?

Sugasweet: A small group of us began playing together nearly two years ago. We spent several months adventuring together, and learned that we had a common goal: to play together with mutual trust and respect. I spent every moment I could playing with these fellows. As time went by, I watched with frustration as each of us struggled with decisions made by those in charge. Decisions that never seemed to take into consideration those of us who'd spent endless hours role-playing, writing stories, and growing our characters and their friendships/relationships. When things came to a breaking point, when I watched my friends become frustrated enough to not want to play, I decided it was time to act. I formed Fellowship of the Dragonsong. The guild was named after the adventuring party of my PnP group. Everyone who came into the guild were awesome role-players. The time we spent playing online reminded me of sitting around the table with my RL gaming buddies (who are also a part of the guild). So, that's how the guild got its name.

I enjoy the small size of the guild. It's a place where we all know and respect each other. Not that we haven't had our disagreements. ;-) It has been an adventure, although things have been slowing down between RL and the anticipation of Trent's new mod. Keeping a small, active community is important to me, as I like knowing everyone in the guild, who they are, and where they're from. It's more than just a bunch of people getting together to play. It's a group of friends. That's what makes the Fellowship awesome.

Can you tell us a bit about the history of your world for the role-players out there?

Aliktren: Well, as we came to play, rather than build, we have been using modified versions of publicly available modules up until now, and a few members of the guild have slowly become quite adept builders allowing us to constantly improve things. The really exciting news is that we will be shortly commencing the beta of a completely new world, based in the Silver Marches area of the Forgotten Realms, covering a lot of the well known areas, like Everlund and Silverymoon, but really the focus is on the wilderness areas in between. The server is open not only to our guild, but to all our friends over at the Ancient Mystic Order of Old Fogeys as well. We are also running a weekly campaign, in a custom built module, which is based in the Turmish region of the realms.

Are there any special features of your world you would like to call out for interested gamers?

Aliktren: Well, in terms of special features, we have a treasure system for the new mod written from the ground up by Jaeger. He really has done an awesome job in trying to make the treasure drops more interesting and relevant, and a fair bit more random. Personally, I think some of our special features are stuff that we have not included. Most roleplay servers make use of a lot of scripting systems such as HCR to "force" the roleplay and make things more "realistic." that's really not our ethic at all; we believe good roleplay comes from the player, not the constraints you place upon them with scripting. Our new module, crafted by Trent, will also have ILR turned off, because the economy and the shops have been developed very carefully to make sure that if you do manage to get a +4 sword, you can be pretty sure that person is going to have to have done something pretty darned special to earn it, and not just tooled around the nearest sewer. We also have a team of top flight DMs ready to start running campaign style plots on the new world. Our team includes Hall of Fame DM Wheldrake who is champing at the bit to get going with some new dastardly plots.

I understand you have an addition to the current persistent world coming out soon. Can you tell us about that?

TrentTinker: Well Jay, it's actually a whole new project that's been in the works since January of this year. I started out wanting to create a new PW for our guild as the 2 that we had been alternating between were getting pretty played out. I decided to go with the Silver Marches because it has just about every environment imaginable in or near it. The Nether Mountains and the Spine of the World for the climber types; the Moonwood, the Cold Wood, and the High Forest for the treehuggers; the Evermoors for those who love the smell of swamp gas in the morning. Once the mod stretches far enough east, players will be able to travel the Anauroch and load up on all the sand their shorts can carry. New players will start having just arrived in Silverymoon, the Gem of the North, which serves as both the springboard of the mod and the focal point of many of the plot lines that are being imbedded in the world, as it is for the Marches in the FR setting. From there, more experienced characters will be able to travel to the nearby forest community, Quaervarr, located to the north on the edges of the Moonwood, or also south along the Rauvin to the great city of Everlund. As new areas are added, the module will expand in all directions to eventually include Jalanthar, Sundabar, Citadel Adbar, and even Mithral Hall. Players very familiar with the setting will find that the cities in this world are smaller than the source material indicates, but this is only because, in my experience, most players don't want to run through a dozen 16x16 areas of City Exterior just to find the smith.

Perhaps the two most important things to me about this new PW that has been named "Dragon Realms North,", from a building perspective, is that it will be a highly dynamic world. I plan on not only adding many, many more areas after the initial beta launch, but also have changes made to existing areas based on player actions in DM'ed events on the server. To me, this is the best way to achieve the level of immersion that we old school dice rollers are used to in a virtual setting. The other goal I have in mind while building is that this PW gives our guild members an enjoyable place to get together with their online friends and have enough fun and exciting adventures to tide everyone over until NWN2 and Dragon Age are released.

Quick question: did you or did you not give Jay W a shot to the kidney over e-mail?

Aliktren: I'm pretty sure that was a misunderstanding *innocent grin*. Must be a transatlantic thing. You North Americans are kinda sensitive in the Kidney area apparently.

Related Links

• Fellowship of the Dragonsong website
• Introduction to Persistent Worlds
• Register your own Guild
• Guilds and Registry FAQ
• More Guild and Presistent World Profiles

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