Overview
Welcome to The Dragon's Neck (TDN)! This Persistent World takes place within the Forgotten Realms, specifically nestled away on the border of Amn and Tethyr, south of the Small Teeth mountain range in a region called the Swordbelt. Our objective when developing TDN is to establish a world that brings a sense of realism to Forgotten Realms, while maintaining the sense of wonder that comes with fantasy.
We classify the vision as the overall philosophy that TDN has been built around; from lore to mechanics and everything in between. The vision affects all aspects of what we do as DMs, and what players will be doing. The setting is low magic and intends to concentrate far more on themes like philosophy, politics, interpersonal conflicts and grey morality over the usual heroism, good vs evil, whims of gods or cults, etc.
This doesn’t mean that there can’t be elements of those latter themes in the server's stories and events, it just means that the primary focus should not be on them - this is, after all, still a fantasy world. TDN is not intended to represent the classic Forgotten Realms. Instead the tone of it seeks to be more grounded, where alignment gets muddied by complicated situations and is measured far more by consistent behaviour over singular actions.
To put it more plainly, events where cultists look to summon a demon are likely rare if ever to be seen on TDN. Similarly the undead and other elements of the supernatural are taken far more seriously and used far more sparingly.
So what does that mean? The server requires a lot of creativity and thought. It wants to challenge you to move away from things that are standard fare on most servers, and instead think about how you can take relatively mundane situations and make them complex and interesting: a corrupt guard extorting money from a poor and vulnerable family, a string of slayings in the slums that turn out to be a vigilante taking revenge in the name of their murdered sister, and so on.
In order to allow players a general guideline of TDN's approach to the setting, we wanted to communicate the following clarification on our Magic & Fantasy Setting:
There is a lot of varied opinions on the definitions of Magic Setting and Fantasy Setting. The below clarification is simply to establish what players might experience when interacting within the world, and from a story standpoint, The Longest Year is intended to bring the setting to the following:
From a Story perspective, much of our constructed narrative is closer to Low-Fantasy with pockets of medium fantasy (with an exception here and there). And we think that's appropriate in order to give the Medium+ Fantasy storylines the appropriate space to demonstrate the implications of the events. That said, most of what we'll see in our stories are low fantasy. Which is where most of the narrative of the server should live. Expect to have most story-telling via DM events to be local events. Most of our narrative is focused on political intrigue, and events based within the countries of Amn & Tethyr. (Don't expect to be saving the known universe on TDN).
Low-Magic Clarification
* As a general note: Yes, we understand that everyone has different interpretations of what "Low-Magic" means. This is the server's perspective.
Below are some details on what the server's stance is on Low-Magic:
Welcome to The Dragon's Neck (TDN)! This Persistent World takes place within the Forgotten Realms, specifically nestled away on the border of Amn and Tethyr, south of the Small Teeth mountain range in a region called the Swordbelt. Our objective when developing TDN is to establish a world that brings a sense of realism to Forgotten Realms, while maintaining the sense of wonder that comes with fantasy.
We classify the vision as the overall philosophy that TDN has been built around; from lore to mechanics and everything in between. The vision affects all aspects of what we do as DMs, and what players will be doing. The setting is low magic and intends to concentrate far more on themes like philosophy, politics, interpersonal conflicts and grey morality over the usual heroism, good vs evil, whims of gods or cults, etc.
This doesn’t mean that there can’t be elements of those latter themes in the server's stories and events, it just means that the primary focus should not be on them - this is, after all, still a fantasy world. TDN is not intended to represent the classic Forgotten Realms. Instead the tone of it seeks to be more grounded, where alignment gets muddied by complicated situations and is measured far more by consistent behaviour over singular actions.
To put it more plainly, events where cultists look to summon a demon are likely rare if ever to be seen on TDN. Similarly the undead and other elements of the supernatural are taken far more seriously and used far more sparingly.
So what does that mean? The server requires a lot of creativity and thought. It wants to challenge you to move away from things that are standard fare on most servers, and instead think about how you can take relatively mundane situations and make them complex and interesting: a corrupt guard extorting money from a poor and vulnerable family, a string of slayings in the slums that turn out to be a vigilante taking revenge in the name of their murdered sister, and so on.
In order to allow players a general guideline of TDN's approach to the setting, we wanted to communicate the following clarification on our Magic & Fantasy Setting:
There is a lot of varied opinions on the definitions of Magic Setting and Fantasy Setting. The below clarification is simply to establish what players might experience when interacting within the world, and from a story standpoint, The Longest Year is intended to bring the setting to the following:
- Low-Magic (Meaning there are limitations on item power & availability, spells and their availability, frequency of high-level spell-casts, when compared to the standard Forgotten Realms setting).
- Low-To-Medium-Fantasy (The scale of adventure that someone might experience)
From a Story perspective, much of our constructed narrative is closer to Low-Fantasy with pockets of medium fantasy (with an exception here and there). And we think that's appropriate in order to give the Medium+ Fantasy storylines the appropriate space to demonstrate the implications of the events. That said, most of what we'll see in our stories are low fantasy. Which is where most of the narrative of the server should live. Expect to have most story-telling via DM events to be local events. Most of our narrative is focused on political intrigue, and events based within the countries of Amn & Tethyr. (Don't expect to be saving the known universe on TDN).
Low-Magic Clarification
* As a general note: Yes, we understand that everyone has different interpretations of what "Low-Magic" means. This is the server's perspective.
Below are some details on what the server's stance is on Low-Magic:
- Item Progression will occur on a lateral scale, rather than vertical.
- I.e. You'd sooner find an item with +1 Enhancement and +2 Fire Damage, than you would find one with +3 or +4 Enhancement Bonus. (The latter of which are not loot options in-game).
- Spell Casting will have mechanical tweaks, and systemic restrictions.
- Nearly all spells have been adjusted, and will have cooldown restrictions on their casting dependent on the exact spell circle.
- Ability Score buffs have been nerfed. (Ability Scores are currently capped at +8 as of our Closed Beta).
- Similar to Item progression, spell-casting has taken a lateral approach.
- We've made a concentrated effort to reduce the quantity of planar-creatures encountered in dungeons in order to stick to a more medieval feel (within reason, this is Faerun, after all).
- Your character is unlikely to encounter the following throughout their life:
- Dragons of any kind.
- Outsider/Planar/Angelic Creatures of significance: Balors, Planetars, etc.
- Liches/Demiliches
- Greater Elementals
- And other similarly unique creatures.
- The lower quantity of the above creatures is intended to support the overall storytelling vision of the server, as well as to enforce the consistency of custom lore (I.e. The Longest Year).
- Your character is unlikely to encounter the following throughout their life: