FRUA: Neverwinter Nights - 3: A Different Direction

After playing Forgotten Worlds for a bit again, I once again found the urge to fire up Neverwinter Nights. I was oddly impressed by the intro music, not having heard it in awhile. It drew me in, I was ready for adventure!

There's trouble in Windycliffs! What kind of trouble? I don't know...

Our party awakened in their room at the Windycliff Inn. One platinum piece had bought them a single room with six beds. Kylie Tor, their nominal leader, had awakened early, and was discussing plans with the wizard Augustar. They spoke over bowls of hot beef stew. The rest of the party woke, stretching and making their way, bleary-eyed, downstairs for breakfast.

Windycliffs is the equivalent location of Spearpoint in Forgotten World, so it seemed a reasonable place to start this session. Doing a little exploring, I noticed some differences between the two games. In a ransacked house is a battle with some spies and a mammoth, of all things. However, in NWN the mammoth was not included, which I thought made the battle much more reasonable. I checked the editor though, and it turns out the mammoth IS supposed to be there, it just doesn't appear. The "spies" leading the mammoth are called "Kraken spies" in this game. A quick check at the Forgotten Realms Wiki tells me these are members of the Kraken Society, a secret society of thieves, assassins, and mages, founded by the kraken Slarkrethel. I remember them from the Savage Frontier Gold Box games, where they served a similar purpose as the Fire Knives did in Curse of the Azure Bonds.

Our party continued exploring the ransacked mansion. Approaching the next door, they heard the sounds of a struggle, something vary large was in this room! Silently, Kylie and her companion at arms, Ahriman, nodded at each other, taking up positions. Kylie flung open the door to a bit of mayhem, gnolls, hairy hyena-men, had a lasso around the neck of a centaur, and were attempting to subdue him. Kylie immediately came to the aid of the centaur, cutting the rope with one mighty two-handed swing of her magical battle axe. The centaur un-slung its bow and took up a position behind the party.

One thing I had forgotten about this version of the engine is that there is a leadership ability, that I believe paladins have, that will allow you to control of certain NPC's. This is always more fun when, as is the case here, you get to control a monster like a centaur.

The centaur's character sheet. I could really use that gem...

I mapped the woods surrounding Windycliffs, discovering a few new areas by doing so. As has been the case with both of these games, the excitement of discovering a new area is quickly tempered by the almost inevitable defeat by the new encounter it uncovers. The greenhag and owlbears I mentioned in my last FW post guard a secret door, but if I remember correctly they are only there during the day time. I used this fact to avoid them, as I am certain that even with a great amount of I luck my party can't defeat them yet. Beyond the locked secret door was a series of long hallways, where I encountered a group of Kraken spies and a harpy. I remembered harpies being dangerous, but couldn't place why, until she started charming my party members! I hoped the duration of the effect would be short, but in the end I had to cut down three of my own!

A harpy and Kraken spies.

To be fair, the harpy battle was winnable, but this one I didn't have a chance!

It's annoying that the battles often don't even have any flavor text, the 4 minotaurs and two snakes just appeared on the screen and beat the snot out of my party. After feeling I wasn't making much progress, I debated how to handle things. In the end, I decided my single class thief would be better off as a strong Fighter/Thief. Also that my triple class Cl/F/Mu wasn't advancing quickly enough, I decided to replace her with a single class mage for more fire power.

After a series of embarrassing defeats, the party headed back to Neverwinter to rest and recuperate. Kylie could tell the other party members knew something was up, as there was quite a bit of whispering and grumbling behind her back. As they were making their way through the warehouse district to the gates of Neverwinter, Kylie turned to Augustar, "Do you want to tell them?" she asked. "Nope," he responded shortly, "That's the kind of thing you signed up for by being our fearless leader," he finished, patting her on the back. Kylie nodded grimly.

Over supper that evening, Kylie pulled Alianna and Milkbottom aside, telling them that while they appreciated their help, the results "hadn't been what they'd talked about," and that the party was now going "in a different direction." Milkbottom kept quiet, looking every direction except directly at Kylie. Alianna crossed her arms beneath her breasts, and tugged on her braid furiously, "Well," she said, "So be it, I wish you luck, hmmph." And with that, the party was back to it's original four members.

"How'd it go?" Augustar asked as Kylie returned to the table, "Breaking up is hard to do," she said back, "but in the end, it's probably for the best. Let's start talking about recruits. Oh... and I think our little adventuring party could use a name as well, don't you think?" And so they conversed into the night, talking of a future full of possibilities. To find out what that future holds, come back next time... for This Bard's Tales!

Play Time to Post: 4h 55m
Total Play Time: 14h 25m