The Dragon's Neck Dev Update
Thus, we took the time to more closely consider the Fair Folk in all aspects. To begin with, Ruladre has done a phenomenal job in making extensive modifications to the Elven Treetop City tileset, as well as providing many new placeables to decorate it in a beautiful, natural way. Meanwhile, the narrative team have been crafting lore on a custom home region within the Wealdath for both the elves and the nature faction that is to accompany them.
During this process, the team have also reviewed the way elves will be integrated into the server, which has allowed us to reconsider Elven accessibility to certain classes. We believe that once the server is launched everyone will appreciate the more comprehensive and engaging portrayal of elves, and will enjoy the truly outstanding work that has gone into visualising their home. Details below.
More TDN music courtesy of the Edelweiss Records:
- Elven Treetop City Tileset Updates & Wood Elf Placeable Pack
- These incredible upgrades, courtesy of the amazing Ruladre, are intended to bring an upcoming player hub to the same level of quality as Murann and much of the module in general. Please see the bottom of the page for screenshots, though please keep in mind that this is but a small glimpse of what will be on offer. The hub in question caters exclusively to the nature faction, The Conclave, and the elves of the Wealdath. More information on this & intended player hubs, and what should drive player engagement within & around them, will be provided in the coming months.
- Ruladre has also provided us with a high quality Wood Elf Placeable Pack which will be leveraged in the aforementioned hub, though players will also be able to use the entire pack in their housing & property. Screenshots can be found at the bottom of this page.
- Wealdath Area Overhauls
- You may have noticed some beautiful screenshots recently in the Discord, courtesy of the talented Calliope (both the screenshots and the building). Behind the scenes they have been working on the following changes to The Wealdath:
- Completely overhauling the edge areas, as in areas skirting human civilisation, with the following intent:
- Making them on par with the quality of the majority of TDN's areas, if not even surpassing the average quality.
- Placeable clutter reduction for better pathfinding & improved camera visibility and angles.
- Ensuring a closer aesthetic to The Wealdath's canon portrayal (with creative license taken occasionally of course).
- Usage of hundreds of new fantastic placeables.
- The tileset(s) leveraged within The Wealdath have seen fancy map upgrades & general tileset updates (such as water shader improvement), much akin to Murann's tileset changes.
- Completely overhauling the edge areas, as in areas skirting human civilisation, with the following intent:
- The area overhaul in question will continue until & past launch if necessary, but our current aim is to make the rest of The Wealdath consistent with the new area changes by launch.
- You may have noticed some beautiful screenshots recently in the Discord, courtesy of the talented Calliope (both the screenshots and the building). Behind the scenes they have been working on the following changes to The Wealdath:
- Elven Races & Imposed Class Restrictions
- The elven subraces (moon, sun, wood, and wild elves) will from now on have a select few disallowed classes. Similar class restrictions may come into play with potential future race additions as well, and the purpose of this is to ensure consistency and accuracy in our established narrative. The disallowed classes for elves are as follows:
- Dread Necromancer
- Blighter
- Paladin
- Monk
- Reasoning for each class restriction:
- Dread Necromancer & Blighter
- Elven lore is implicitly tied to a connection with nature, insomuch that they would be sacrificing salvation if they were to turn away from it. Turning to a Dread Necromancer or Blighter's path is significantly antithetical to elven innate beliefs, culture, and their very nature, even more so for particular subraces such as wood elves.
- We would rather push such unusual and rare concepts towards an NPC or story individual rather than risking running into a group of Elven Blighters from the get-go (which could quickly happen due to stat allocation/min-maxing). While PCs are supposed to be a minority of the world's populace, in the context of a PW PCs may still easily and swiftly over-represent races to the point of it becoming inconsistent with TDN's in-game portrayal and general lore of of said races, which in turn would chip away at setting integrity.
- Paladin & Monk
- Paladin-hood and monasticism aren't within the ideals of elves. They don't focus their lives as those concepts demand - on the pursuit of one or similarly few limited ideals. Elves spend a decade learning something then move on to another thing. They're whimsical towards their education and pursuits, as such setting a life-long focus on something like paladin-hood or the select few tenents of a monk order, is simply outside how nearly all elves and their gods would expect their lives to be lived. This doesn't mean an elf can't be orderly and lawful, but for them to dedicate their lives towards either concept would be extremely unusual and not likely something an elven god would promote or support.
- Paladins as originally intended in core D&D and not what the 'paladin' of later editions is, is a LG /human/ tradition with very specific codes that elves simply wouldn't adopt. Elves have survived for tens of millennia without paladins - they have no reason to suddenly adopt a human-based class based on oaths that are for human traditions. The most lawful elves - the gold elves - are notorious for only caring about their own power to the point of starting the Crown Wars. That's not a fault of themselves though, that's just an example of the elven race - upholding human tenents isn't within their culture.
- Elves already have other classes that provide the same role, the closest option being the Bladesinger PrC, which TDN has. Those wishing to play what is essentially an elven paladin are welcome to pursue said PrC.
- Dread Necromancer & Blighter
- The elven subraces (moon, sun, wood, and wild elves) will from now on have a select few disallowed classes. Similar class restrictions may come into play with potential future race additions as well, and the purpose of this is to ensure consistency and accuracy in our established narrative. The disallowed classes for elves are as follows:
- Gnome Class Opening: Warsling Sniper
- Originally a hin exclusive option, this PrC will now also be opened to gnomes. This change is supported by established custom lore, and should offer a greater variety of gnomish concepts. Further context is as follows:
- In the wake of The Longest Year, the often magically inclined gnomes could no longer rely on their ordinary methods. Hin, commonly close enough with gnomes, began to pass on this unique technique of Warslinging to those receptive among gnomekind, in order to aid them in defending themselves through physical means outside of alchemy and inventions. While many gnomes cling onto such traditions, some have turned to simpler ways of combat, whether out of necessity, mimicry of halfling culture, or something else altogether.
- Originally a hin exclusive option, this PrC will now also be opened to gnomes. This change is supported by established custom lore, and should offer a greater variety of gnomish concepts. Further context is as follows:
- Wiki Updates & Additions
- "Stance on Obscure FR Lore". This page's purpose is to highlight and clarify what isn't acceptable lore to draw from or to reference to.
- "Chat Logs, Recordings & Privacy" updated, namely the "Recordings" section.
- "Languages" wiki page updated to reflect latest language changes & addition of "Bonus Language Suggestions" section.
New Screenshots!
