As promised, a few of the pictures of the environments that I was working on can be found here:
I had/have two major story lines in my head, that never made it to paper, so to speak.
The first one, and the one that the pictures were taken from, begins with Grace Rathborn in Neverwinter asking the players for help picking up vegetables from a local farmer for the Farmer's Market. Of course, you assist...
Leaving the confines of the Protector's Enclave walls, you find yourself in the countryside, amongst many farms, with the darkening on the horizon to the south, signifying a dense forest border. The farmer whom you are visiting is not home, but Grace thinks that he may be in his cabin that's just within the treeline.
As you enter the forest, the light begins to fade, and ill wind picks up, and you high tail it to the cabin where you find it engulfed in flames and an old farmhand slain and lying in a pool of his blood. Grace is freaking out at this point, and you enter the house to look for the farmer (Hugh is his name).
While inside, you here Grace screaming some more. Big surprise, right? Outside the cabin is ambushed by fanatical zealous Lizardfolk who grab Grace and disappear into the woods. Great! You're committed now, aren't you?
You track the lizardfolk to an small decrepit temple in the middle of the woods, where they disappear down a small hole and you follow. Track em down, find them about to sacrifice Grace on some sort of altar, kick their butts, rescue Grace, yaddi yaddi yadda. Grace asks you to head to the Deekin Distrct and consult a priest there about what just happened.
Thus ends the first quest.
Deekin district is outside of Protector's Enclave, so it's been quite ravaged by the Spellplague. It contains an old marketplace called Deekin Square. This area is referred to as "Neverwealth" by the inhabitants, as a mockery towards the Lords of Neverwinter, who obviously did not want to be burdened with the troubles of them. But living in poverty and anarchy isn't the biggest of their troubles. A large section of the Deekin District was lost when the cliff uponwhich this section of Neverwinter was originally built, crumbled. A large portion of the city was destroyed, thousands of people killed. The survivors all live in a sprawling tent city at the bottom of the cliff, along the Sword Coast coastline. There was once a makeshift roadway for safe passage below, which many volunteers actively worked to help those affected. However, recent tremors had rendered the pathway dangerous, and travel has lessened significantly.
The new cliff that was formed, the cliff along-which the pathway descends, is called Blightwatch Cliff, on account of the destruction that it now looms over.
That is the setting for the second quest, but I gotta take a break and get something productive done. Cold cold day here today, was 63 when I woke up, so tonight will be a great night for Chicken and Sliders! (an old family recipe on my mother's [Finnish] side).
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