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Silver Spire

Profile by Jay Watamaniuk

"The army of demons, led by Alvarone himself, marched into the foothills and began a bloody war that shook the already crumbling foundations of the Old Empires to the ground."
- Taken from The Demon Wars of Alverone's Keep, Chapter 3: The Demon March

When Neverwinter Nights was first released the tagline read, "endless adventure." Years later, we see how true that was. The world of NWN has been re-envisioned countless times by fans wanting to tailor the game to suit their imaginations. Some created whole new worlds that held little in common with the Forgotten Realms, while others took pieces of the Realms and gave them their own unique flavor. The team responsible for the persistent world of Silver Spire has not only created a new world with roots in Ed Greenwood's Realms, but they have approached some of the fundamental cornerstones of running a persistent world in a different way to boot. We spoke with World Leader Reinstag about his fantastic realm.

Where can I read more?

http://silver-spire.com

Who are the top contributors to Silver Spire?

Reinstag: In no particular order we have: Alexandru Stanicu, Garand, Faidyn, Scury_Platypus, PussInBoots, and myself. In our early days, we had CuRoi, Jadeia, Summer Sun, and Dephant. It's safe to say that, without them, Spire wouldn't be where it is today.

How did you get started? What were some of the challenges in the early months?

Reinstag: A lot of us were Avlis or CoPaP players who got the idea to do our own world. We decided to do a world from scratch, and this presented a large number of issues. We wanted to make use of the Forgotten Realms setting, since the items in the standard palette reflect a Realms setting. But at the same time, we wanted something original. So, we came up with the idea of a splinter plane that was once connected to the Forgotten Realms, but has now been cut off. This leaves us free to make use of FR gods, spells, and items, but allows us the creativity to build and populate lands according to our whim. However, that also left us with several difficult decisions. One of the more difficult choices was how plentiful to make magical items. We also had to decide on level limits, experience point rewards, custom races and classes, and the death system. In all, it took about a month to solidify the base systems of our server and create code for all of our choices, with the exception of custom races and prestige classes--those took another three months to set up.

Where did the inspiration for the theme and setting come from?

Reinstag: Spire was originally intended to be a desert-based world with an "Arabian Nights" feel to it. Like most creative projects with a dozen people involved, our focus shifted to a more traditional fantasy setting of pseudo-European themes. However, we still have a strong desert presence in the world, making use of several desert tilesets. Depheant was generous enough with his time and created a new weapons hak based on Indo-Persian design which fits well with the desert theme. But each builder has his or her own style and no doubt we'll see the focus shift again in the future. We give our builders a fair amount of leeway in the design of their areas.

I understand the world will change according to the completion of some plots. Can you explain this further?

Reinstag: One of the team's pet peeves is static worlds: where epic PCs overcome enormous odds to defeat god-like enemies, but when the dust settles, the world hasn't changed a bit. There's not even a destroyed building or two. Our world is very fluid. Our builders are constantly going back over areas, tweaking spawn points, and changing monsters. But our changes go farther than that.

Currently, we have a plot in development that focuses on a large orc army rampaging across the landscape. In a best case scenario, the PCs will stand victorious over the broken orc army. In a worst case scenario, the PCs will need to learn to speak orcish. If this worst case event happened, our builders will redesign large sections of the server to show the orcs are in control of the region. NPCs will be removed and replaced with orcs or their allies. Sections of settlements will be reduced to rubble and forested areas will be burned down. This is, of course, an extreme example, but it wouldn't be the first time PCs 'lost' on Spire.

Several months ago a plot involving a massive drow raid onto the surface was uncovered by the PCs. The DMs knew when the raid would happen and were ready to implement any plans the PCs would come up with. These ranged from building a wall around the village to evacuation to a preemptive attack on the drow. Unfortunately, the PCs were divided on a proper course of action and were unprepared for the drow assault when it came. Consequently, the village was destroyed. One of our builders rebuilt the maps of the village to show it had been razed and the place has been a crumbling ruin since.

This is a lot of work for our building team and DMs, but we feel that this drives home the idea that the action, or inaction, of PCs has a very real effect on the world. It also shows that our plots are not scripts that the players are expected to follow to a predetermined conclusion.

What is coming up in the world of Silver Spire?

Reinstag: We're moving ahead with the world, creating plots, continuing to add new areas for characters to explore, and change existing areas based on the actions of players. Our latest project is adding new community content, including some new tilesets and clothing choices. We want Spire to feel like that old gaming group you spent every Saturday night with, gathered around someone's kitchen table. Spire is an incredibly fun server to play on, but more than that, it's a group of friends that get together to hang out and tell a good story.

Related Links

• An introduction to Persistent Worlds
• Using the Toolset's Plot Wizard to create your story
• Eligio's creating custom content guide
• NWN Diamond. If you don't own NWN, this is the latest version you can purchase.

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