What Made the Republic Work?

Some may wonder how the Republic was able to eliminate poverty. Using a technology call Mechanically Assisted Spell Casting or M.A.S.C. Masc works by storing basic magical energy channeled by a wizard or sorcerer in a device called a magical capacitor and using machines to complete the casting so that anyone can have access to powerful magics. Normal wands or Rods store specifically tagged magic for the casting of specific spells. The masc breakthrough allows one to store magical energy before it is tagged allowing it to be used for multiple applications. The Masc device that eliminated poverty in the Republic of Corant was the Conjuration Cubicle which allows non-magically inclined to conjure specific objects such as food using stored magical energy. This technology broke down when Illephor sanctioned the use of all Masc technology for the creation of the Spire.

Working Title for My Campaign

I have come up with a working title for my campaign. Midnight or Eternity. With what I have outlined so far of the story it will have six chapters:
Chapter 1: Intro and Prologue
Chapter 2: On the Road
Chapter 3: The Mysterious Mountains
Chapter 4: Slavery
Chapter 5: Journey to the Spire
Chapter 6: The Spire, A Choice
The Campaign Title and the Chapter titles will likely change many times before release. Haven't had much chance to work on the mod and the next week is going to be a busy one at work so I'll probably not get much done but I will keep plugging away. I have been trying to figure out how to get Windmill animations to turn on and off with little success so far. Any suggestions are welcomed.

My 1st Working Conversation

I wrote my first conversation tonight and was able to get it to work in the game successfully. I even was able to attach a journal entry to it starting the first quest in what will become a long branching tree of them. This is a big step for me as a first time modder and I am very excited about it. Here are some screen shots. So I know the first quest sounds kind of lame but I am making it for a reason. It will require me to implement branching journal entries that come together in the end which is something that will be required for the more non-linear parts of my story. Like I said I have designed the first chapter to require me to learn all the skills I will need to make the rest of the story and this is a big first step for me. Hopefully everything else will go this smoothly.

New Direction

I have decided to create a small introductory mod to my campaign in order to introduce the background story as well as allow me to learn the scripting, cut-scene, and conversation writing skills that will be required for the campaign. This first mod will be combat light, with few role playing choices but will feature an introduction to the first main mystery of the campaign. What makes a 10,000 year old benevolent founder of the largest free republic in history, a republic that eliminated poverty and lead all its citizens to prosperity, turn into a violent dictator? You'll have to play it to find out.

Background Story

Your father was once a Paladin who worked closely with the Once existing Free Republic of Corant. The Republic was founded over 1000 years ago and was governed by a council of elected members of the major races dwelling within its borders including; elves, dwarfs, halflings, humans, gnomes, and even a few communities of half-orcs though the half-orcs rarely reached high enough population to gain a seat on the council.
Every ten years the council elected one member to act as head of the government though in all the years of the Republics existence the office had only been held by one elf: Archmage Illephor Nethium. Illephor is the oldest elf in known existence and is believed to be around 10,000 years old. He help to found the republic and brought peace and prosperity to half the world.
100 years ago all that changed. A great storm fell upon the northern mountains. At its height huge bolts of lightning arced across the sky from many directions towards the highest mountain in the range setting a colossal forest fire that burned down all the trees on the whole mountainside. Then the fire simply stopped leaving a barren wasteland covering the whole mountain while trees nearby the mountain were not burned.
It was then that Illephor began acting strangely. He began meeting with an obscure order of elven monks. He gave them police like powers and began to send them on missions to investigate locals all over the world. He drafted many citizens into a workforce to create a huge structure in the center of the republic, a spire stretching clear to the sky. The huge drain on resources that this project caused brought back something that citizens of the republic had not known since the creation of mechanically assisted spell casting: poverty. This lead to unrest but when questioned Illephor only said, "Trust in me. Its for your own good."
As the unrest grew to proportions that threatened the construction of the spire he finally reacted by sending the elven monks in to disband the council and declare martial law. The senators, who were some of the most powerful people on the planet didn't react to kindly to being disbanded and open fighting erupted between them and the elven monks. The monks won and the Empire was born.
Illephor wasted no time using as much force as possible to bring his subjects back in line. Those who did not comply received a visit from an elven monk that "ended" the protest. He began rounding up people and taking them away to work on special projects from which they never returned.
During this time your father was sent on a mission along with one of the monks named Asendi to the base of the northern mountains. They investigated a cavern that lead deep into the earth were they came upon a battle being fought between a small squad of drow and unknown attackers. During the fight your father found a strange crystal and tucked it away for safe keeping. This journey into the mountains took hims several years and he and Asendi had became friends. Your father admired the elf's devotion to order though sometimes found his methods to be cruel.
Upon returning to the homelands your father found his beloved republic was no more. He discovered that Illephor and the elven monks were using magic to capture citizens souls to use as a power source for the tower. He decided the only thing he could do was to get his wife and child and leave. When he arrived at his house he found Asendi waiting for him standing over his dead wife. He wounded Asendi and escaped with his child, the PC, heading back towards the mountains to hide.
The northern part of the empire rebelled and Illephor has been unable to reconquer it. Your father has taken up residence in the southern part of the rebel lands were his skills are sometimes required to help defend the a nearby rebel fort from incursions by the empire.
He has built a small farm and trades with passing caravans along with the people of the nearby town.
The story will begin with you being sent to town to deliver supplies to a merchant.

My First Mod

The first mod in my series will feature exploring a range of mountains in an attempt to find an alternate route from one town to another. Without giving away too much here are some early screen shots of the first outdoor area. I haven't added trees yet as I am going to have to either cut each one individually out of the area walk-mesh or find a plug-in that does it for me and due to the recent release of the 1.05 beta patch I anticipate that some of the plug-ins will no longer work right so I am waiting for the full 1.05 patch to be released before starting to put trees in the areas. Also some of these shots are from before I began putting in grass but they still give a feel for my area design.
The one problem I am having is with the draw distance because sometimes you can see the sky then as you walk forward a huge mountain appears out of the sky and blocks it. I am hoping there is a way to use fog to block the sky out or perhaps just using the horizon pieces will do it but they don't look all that great yet and always appear at the same height no matter how high you climb in the area.
Later I will post more on the backround story to this world and give more screen-shots as they come.

1st Post: The Purpose of this Blog

I am creating this blog to allow me to easily show others the progress of a mod I am making for NWN2. So far all I have done is to work on making indoor and outdoor areas. This is the first time I have ever attempted anything of this magnitude and I have a lot to learn. Because I don't wish to be constrained completely by the pre-existing histories of other fantasy worlds I have chosen to set my first mod in a custom world of my own creation. Though I could invent new deities for this setting that would mean learning to edit the 2da files and people playing this mod as divine classes might have problems taking there characters to other modules so I am using the deities of the forgotten realms. What this means in game is that my custom world will be a side plane to Aber-Toril. This means that the same magic and deities govern this plane as Toril and that it is possible to travel to Aber-Toril from my world; however, I am introducing a constraint that it is impossible for normal life forms to travel from one of these side planes to other planes not connected to Toril without first traveling to Toril. I am planning this feature to be part of the story eventually but cannot reveal that part without giving away many things about my campaign.