Hearkenwold Beta

[Dorateen]

December Update

An exciting end of the year update! I got a lot done last month regarding the next guild quest, the one for rangers. It is pretty decent in scope, like a mini adventure, and if I can keep on track I hope to have it finished and the new version of Hearkenwold uploaded this month. In the meantime, here are some preview screenshots. First up, is the Guild Master of the Order that rangers belong to. He will give some further insight into the guilds and their purpose.



He also tells ranger characters what their level rank is, if asked. Here, this party member is 5th level.



This quest involved working on a brand new area of the campaign world, unreachable until now. It is the home of the elves, rumored to lie dormant, the Serion Forest. There are multiple maps making up this enchanted wood, and one section uses cherry blossom trees.



I have also included new creatures that will show up in battle. One example here, are griffins, which served as mounts for some dark elves.



Now because of the unique characteristic of this location, there is quite a bit of background lore behind the elves of the forest. As I alluded to, they were long believed to lie dormant, as these secretive people had withdrawn from the rest of the world over five hundred years ago. But something strange has happened, and the characters will be thrown into the midst of a great mystery. They might even get to meet the elven King and his Queen, although the reaction from a dwarf could be less than receptive.



Finally, I like to add little map events that will give specific characters a moment to shine. In this case, since it is after all a quest designed for rangers, such party members will show off their survival instincts.



Also, I just want to mention, that I am now using the script that advanced the world timer. I had to go back and add this action to a lot of conversations, which were the vehicle driving the game's narrative and events. Resting now passes eight hours on the clock. Other sequences, like travel between locations or the trip to Asherim, can take a day or more. This is now reflected on the map's calendar and clock.

[slowdive]

Great progress there. The new elven forest areas look great. I like that my ranger will have more chances to shine. I always liked the two early benefits of finding a resting area from the storms and making a special bow. I appreciate the addition of time passage as well...it makes things seem more pressing even if they technically are not.

[youngneil1]

Many thanks for the juicy update ! The elven lands look beautifully outlandish. Also, it's great to see how you to continue to extend the guild system. Having the tracking of time in the gameworld goes a long way for immerison indeed. If you one day feel inclined you can give the useRealTimeTimer property (module editor, 01 section; realTimeTimerLengthInMilliseconds property determines the length like 1500 for 1.5 seconds) a go: it makes the time slowy tick away even when the party just idles around. Combined with day& night cycle, weather and movers it keeps thw world constantly spinning, for whatever this is worth .

[Dorateen]

Thanks, slowdive and youngneil1. The forest maps have been fun to design. I like the term "outlandish", as this should be a wood that feels different from the other forests of Hearkenwold. Something otherworldly, mercurial, and magical. I hope this adventure will capture some of that atmosphere.

I am definitely considering setting up the weather and day/night systems one of these days. The gameworld continues to grow, and I would like to achieve that level of immersion.

[Dorateen]

I've a little holiday treat for anyone interested in the background development behind this project. I was going through some old material and found a map I drafted on graph paper when I first started writing the fiction that serves as the backdrop for the Hearkenwold campaign. A little bit a trivia, the reason why the calendar year this adventure starts in is recorded as 1295, is because I began working on the story in December of 1995. Over the years, there would be another iteration of the map, more detailed and with some name changes, which I can't seem to locate at the moment. Anyway, the intention of this PC hobby project is to eventually re-imagine this map in the gameworld.

HearkenwoldMap2.jpg (205.63 KiB) Viewed 2770 times

Some interesting notes. "The Lands of Brunwor" is what would ultimately become Hearkenwold for the purposes of the campaign. I adopted the name when I was reading a Nentir Vale supplement back in 2012, and the name resonated with me. Although I changed it to the preferred archaic spelling, of course. I did retain the name Brunwor as belonging to the founding lineage of Kings of Astaria. The "Cerine Forest" would be changed to Serion, as described in the previous update.

A few locations on the map that are already represented in the game include the city of Khyn, Fortress Relmfur, Skardale, and the Halls of Hamhock.

The desert land of Asherim, which is an optional area the players can find themselves in, would be placed somewhere in the southeast of the map.

I am almost done with the Ranger guild quest line, so should have the new version available to download by the New Year.

[slowdive]

Thank you for sharing Dorateen. I love seeing the back history of development of these modules and how things have evolved and come together. I sometimes go through my own drawings and notes for my modules and it is fun to remember how things have evolved and eventually come to fruition.

[Dorateen]

Absolutely. I can imagine the creative process that went into developing Lanterna.

[youngneil1]

So inspiring to see your thoughts laid down and to dream of all the upcoming wonders the map is teasing . Many thanks for sharing and here's a toast to Hearkenwold evolving full force ahead in 2020 !

[Dorateen]

January Update

It is a New Year for Hearkenwold, and I have a new update of the campaign available. This has been built and tested using version 176 of IceBlink. The file can be downloaded here:

https://neverwintervault.org/project/ic ... earkenwold

Existing games can be continued by copying over the Hearkenwold saves folder into the saves folder of the new version.

The primary feature of course is the Ranger Guild quest that can now be accessed. As outlined when discussing the Cleric guild content, this is not something for a starting party, but follows a process. The player needs to discover the existence of the Guilds and gain entry. Then a sponsor must be found in order to even speak with the respective guild masters. Rangers will receive an objective they must accomplish. Upon success, such characters will be named Lost Guardians, and receive a trait that boosts a couple of stats:



New adventures await in the Serion Forest, a location shrouded in mystery. An enchanted zone, maps will vary from traditional green and forest pines, to the splendor of blue woods. However, there is as much danger as there is beauty to behold.





Now that this quest is finished, the next one I am working on will be for Thief characters. Accordingly, it is going to be more of a straight-up dungeon crawl and treasure hunt. I will post more about its development in the next update, but there is a NWN2 module that I made years ago only it was never released. So now I am excited to realize it as part of IceBlink. I actually got pretty far, so progress should be fairly quick.

[slowdive]

Awesome! Downloaded and will put it on my phone (iPhone X) and iPad (5th gen) to test it out.

EDIT: so far it is working great on my iPhoneX. Of course, I still need to make some UI adjustments and implement the sound system for music and other sounds.