I am convinced…

…that Obsidian is woefully incompetent.

How else do you explain the fact that the NWN2 script editor crashes when you try to scroll down in a script? How the hell do you mess up a freaking script editor? Is it really that hard to design things that work, Obsidian?

Toothpaste

Y’know how, when you first get a new tube of toothpaste, it’s easy to get the stuff out with even the tiniest of squeezes? Well, that’s what my scripting has been like of late. I’ve finally reached a massive milestone in my coding that has allowed me to shift gears from trying to get a working system to playing with the cool toys I made. I’ve also gotten to the point where things work on NWN1 well enough that I can start porting them to NWN2 so Casa can feel like he’s making progress, too.

Y’know how, when a tube of toothpaste is old and almost empty, it’s an incredible pain in the ass to squeeze anything out? Well, that’s what NaNoWriMo has been like. I’m frozen at the 2000 word mark – way earlier than I figured I would be – and just can’t seem to grind out anything substantial after that. My creativity comes in spurts, and it seems that spurt has passed.

Y’know how, when you brush your teeth, you feel so amazingly refreshed and renewed? Well, hopefully I’m going to be experiencing that freshness soon. My wife and I will be heading to Florida for vacation next week and I’ll be getting to take a break from the rat race for a few days. I’ll be leaving my computer at home, most likely, and I imagine I’ll return with renewed vigor. Viva la vacation!

Anyway, in the mean time, I’m going to to brush my teeth.

NaNoWriMo and Other Stuff

Amidst this silence on the blog, a lot has been going on in the forums. I've been going back and reworking the Core scripting framework that Shadows & Silver uses so it's more powerful and flexible. I've also been working on a lot of documentation so that others who want to use the Core will be able to do so with minimal hassle. Meanwhile, Sherincall has started work on a ground-breaking custom ruleset that will establish S&S as a game that just happens to use NWN as its engine, rather than yet another NWN module. We're working hard to develop something new and exciting, a server like you've never seen before.

Also, as if I didn't have enough on my plate, I've decided to join NaNoWriMo, the National Novel Writing Month, wherein wannabe authors like me try to crank out a 50,000 word novel in a month. I'm starting a couple of days late, so I have a little catching up to do. Even though I've been working on this novel for years now, I hardly ever get anything of substance written. I'm very critical of my writing (not here, on this blog, where I just ramble as I see fit), and I usually decide what I said sucks and then destroy it.

Not this month. No, in November I will be committing myself to writing like I was playing in my Oblivion blog: no reloads. I'll write what comes and run with it. No going back and fiddling with wording, no rewriting a weak paragraph. I can always go back and edit it after I'm done, but the point will be to get it out there, even if it's not perfect. Hopefully this will be a good exercise with lots of fruit.

If you want to follow my progress, you can do so here.

Shadows & Silver IRC Channel

Sherincall put up an IRC channel for us: #shadowsandsilver on irc.nwn2source.net. While we'll primarily be using it for dev chats, random folks are welcome to join and talk about the project, too. We hope to see some of the folks who are interested in the project popping up soon.

Further thoughts: race as a literary device

I went to the theater this weekend after stumbling upon a movie review by an author for whose views I have tremendous respect. The film in question: District 9. I never saw any advertisements for this film, nor even heard about it before reading the review. But once I'd finished the article I was determined to see it and was not disappointed.

I'll not go into a plot synopsis here (Latham details it much better than I could); suffice it to say, though, District 9 is a film about racism. I was awed at how, as I watched the persecution of aliens during its run, I was constantly reminded of the horrors of our own history. It was not so long ago that we treated our fellow human beings this way. In some ways, we still do.

One particular scene that struck me was when Wikus, an agent of a private military chosen to serve eviction notices to the aliens living in District 9, discovers a shack full of Prawn eggs. He details what an exciting find it is, then proceeds to kill the eggs, burning down the shack around it, laughing as he hears the screams of the prawn larva. As I watched that scene, I admit, I almost cried. And then I began to wonder: why was it so powerful to see the slaughter of something so repulsive, so emphatically inhuman?

The purpose of non-human life in good fiction is solely to reflect humanity in a distilled form. Whether it's the alien wretches of District 9 showing us the poor and destitute of Africa or the etherial elves of Tolkien showing us the beauty and potential of a race in harmony with the earth, we are always looking into a mirror. When we see the friendship of Legolas and Gimli, we see the reconciliation of the traditional and the mystical. When we see the journey of Frodo we see the cost of goodness. When we hear the cries of the alien larva, we hear the cries of children of the genocides in Rwanda and Uganda.

We see both the beautiful and the wretched reflected in the depictions of non-humans in fiction. We want to embrace some and ignore the rest, like Ebenezer Scrooge, happy to see the merry-making, but begging the Ghost of Christmas Present to remove Ingorance and Want from our sight. But it's essential that we look at both and not forsake one for the other. Humanity is a beautiful thing, but it is also a terrible one. It is only in seeing ourselves in the mirror that we can examine who we truly are and how we might grow. Good fiction will constantly hold that mirror up.

NPCs Are People, Too! - Social Insanity, Part 1

This is the first post in a series that will look at different components of the amorphous blob called society and how they're relative to realistic game worlds and to Shadows & Silver in general. Today's topic: Racism.

Sociology is the study of society and social structures and practices. Like literary criticism and economics, it's often called a "soft science", which is to say that, unlike mathematics or physics, you don't need to have concrete evidence to support hare-brained theories. You can basically just pull ideas out of your ass and people will nod thoughtfully and award you Nobel prizes. (Okay, maybe physics isn't the best example of an opposing science; work with me here.) You don't even have to make sense and, indeed, we often hold beliefs that are based on foolish theories about society that we didn't even know we had. Building a worldview (or, in the case of game developers, a world) on such mistaken assumptions can lead to a faulty end product.

(TANGENT: This is similar to why the U.S., which has for the past century held to the ideas of Keynesian economics, now finds itself in the current financial crisis. The assumption that the economy can be improved by violating the principles that make it work at all is flawed. In practice, the faulty idea actually produces the opposite of what it was supposed to: recession. Yes, it's deeper than that, but this is a post about racism, not stupidity (which, yes, will have its own entry).)

Anyway, finish these sentences.

1. Racism is bad because...
2. Racism exists because...
3. Racism is perpeturated by...
4. Racism can be eliminated by...

No, don't just keep reading. Actually do it. Finish the sentences. That way I can show you why your underlying social theories are illogical and that you suck. (Okay, no, it's so you can compare your logic, evaluate it against my theories and decide which makes more sense and why. If you disagree with me, comment and tell me why.)

If you're like most people, your answers probably go something like this:

1. Racism is bad because... all people are created equal, so no race is inherently better than another.
2. Racism exists because... people don't understand each other's cultures.
3. Racism is perpetuated by... racists spouting their ideas until people believe it.
4. Racism can be eliminated by... punishing racists for showing prejudice and/or spreading cultural awareness.

If you're like most people, you probably chose those answers as knee-jerk responses, because that's what society tells us. What we hear every day is usually what we regurgitate when people ask us what we think. (Hmm... maybe that's support for point 3?)

How would these ideas translate if placed into a game world? Take a typical example: dwarves and elves hate each other. The origin of this trope is found in the Silmarillion, in which a cadre of elves slaughtered a bunch of dwarves because they wanted their mithril mines. In Tolkien-dom, dwarves hate elves because the elves took the shiny stuff they like so much. The elves, of course, hate the dwarves for not understanding that they love shiny things too. Using the theory outlined above, we see the dwarves and elves hate each other because they don't understand each other's culture, right? And the hatred is perpetuated by the surly dwarves not wanting to see both sides of the issue. And the rift can be healed by folks deciding to set aside their differences and get along, a la Legolas and Gimli, right?

This is often the route we take when deciding on the social makeup of fantasy world. Why, in pretty much any given world, do dwarves and elves hate each other? It's not that it's a pervasive stereotype, but that there's a pervasive mode of thought that gives birth to it. Ridding yourself of the stereotype does nothing to rid yourself of the foolish thought that caused the stereotype to exist in the first place. The world in which dwarves and elves are friendly is not significantly different than the world in which they are enemies.

"Wait a minute," I hear you say. "So we're not supposed to make dwarves and elves enemies, but we're not supposed to make them friends, either?" No, the point is that, in either case, the core assumptions are there.

Tolkien does not make the same assumptions about racism that we so often do. In his mind, the dwarves and elves do not hate each other because of a lack of cultural awareness, nor is the chasm between them bridged by a conscious act of goodwill. Tolkien has a specific context, a reason for the enmity: the slaughter of dwarves out of greed. It's not a lack of cultural awareness: it's a natural reaction of hostility after a tragic crime against dwarfdom. No matter that thousands of years have passed. Elves and dwarves are still at odds over a real and very hurtful wound. At the end of the Return of the King, Legolas and Gimli heal the rift not by overcoming cultural differences but by finding that they can love and trust each other and, by extension, each other's races. In Tolkien's world, it's a wondrous statement of the power of friendship. When we try to keep the trope but rob it of the context, our worlds pale in comparison to the Master's.

"So that's it, then? Just give people a reason to hate each other rather than doing it as a matter of course?" No, while that's a step, there's much more to a realistic examination of racism than that. And chances are, if you care about internal consistency at all, you already have reasons for your racial conflicts. But if this is all you've got, then that's just what it is: racial conflict rather than racism.

"Dammit, Michael, what's your point?!?"

Lemme lay it out for you. In Tolkien, the crime against the dwarves was a conflict, and anger towards the perpetrators is an extension of the conflict. Racism is when the hatred towards those who committed the atrocity is expanded to those who did not commit it. So, in effect, it's not a group of elves that killed your people and took your mines, but the elves. That is racism.

Racism is the judgement of a person based on his race, a superficial quality, raher than on his identity, qualities, or actions.

So to a racist dwarf, Legolas is not a valiant warrior who stands out because of his own deeds. Rather, he's an elf, and all that that implies.

Context provides conflict, but, in the minds of racists, it also gives weight to the beliefs they hold. Indeed, the context is seen not as the cause of the racist beliefs, but as their vindication.

To take a real-world example, most of the Christian era has seen racism towards Jews. Common racist beliefs were that Jews wanted to undermine society, destroy the Church, and steal all the Europeans' money. One of the primary reasons for the hatred was that "Jews killed Christ", thus, by extension, making all Jews Christ-killers. "Only a people possessed by Satan could kill Jesus," they'd say, supposing that this was all the proof they needed that Jews were unpatriotic, intolerant, and greedy. Thus the conflict was used as vindication of the beliefs about them. It wasn't a lack of cultural awareness that could be healed by a sudden wave of understanding and the urge to stand around in a circle and sing Kumbaya. While there's still some racism towards the Jews, most of it was squashed by the Holocaust. (To think about: is this because people suddenly realized how ludicrous and dangerous it was to lump others into a group just based on race? Or was it because people suddenly said, "Dude, I think what we did to them is worse than whatever they supposedly did to us"? Since racism is still so widespread, my money is on the latter.)

Why does racism exist? I believe racism serves an inherent social need: namely, to associate with others who are like us. We want to find a group to which we can belong and feel safe with. The more homogenous, the better. In addition, we want to place others in groups and define why they don't belong in ours. You see it in high school: the nerds hang with the nerds, and the jocks with the jocks. If you decide to buck the system, you're a social outcast that none of the cliques want.

But that's not all racism is, right? After all, that would imply that jocks excluding nerds from their clique is an example of racism, right? Correct, which is why we go a step further. Racism is defined as sorting people into groups based on superficial characteristics like physical appearance or ancestry, things that have no bearing on a person's identity (unless they're superficial people as well; the stereotypical high school cheerleader, for example, finds her identity in her appearance). Furthermore, we make the assumption that all people who share that quality share other qualities as well. Jews are soulless, unpatriotic, and greedy. Blacks are uneducated, criminals, and violent. Whites are power-hungry, hateful, and oppressors. The list goes on.

It's not a lack of cultural awareness that causes this but that drive to associate ourselves with a group and hate anyone that's not part of that group. It's not solved by learning some random facts about someone else's group or eating some sort of weird ethnic food (despite the current trends in American schools). It's done by recognizing that people are people, real and unique and worthwhile in their own right, not cardboard cutouts whose only quality is their appearance.

So what does it all boil down to? Basically this: if you're going to have racism, understand how racism works. Have reasons races are at odds, but recognize that the creatures in the game are all people, too. They hate each other to the degree that they choose to find differences upon which to base their persecutions. They also don't all fit the mold you want them to.

Not all dwarves hate all elves. And if that doesn't occur to you when you add a "dwarves hate elves" trope to your world, you're probably either lazy or a racist yourself.

Lore snippet: Humans in Enna enjoy their place at the top of the world. The rest of the races aren't demi-humans; they're subhumans. Orcs, goblins, and even dwarves, are all their misshapen, under-evolved cousins. Nature has destined humans to be dominant, and why not? They're the good guys after all, right?

In Adunay, no one suffers more than goblins. Unlike Krunag orcs, which are openly reviled, goblins are treated as you'd treat a dog turd on your shoe. Goblins have no legal status in Adunay, and can be enslaved, tortured, or even killed without question. As such, there's no goblin society to speak of, save that which can survive in hiding.

Creating Conflict

I've been considering lore and storyline a lot lately while I script, and one of the things I keep returning to is creating compelling conflict in the world. There's several things to keep in mind while creating conflict for S&S.

First, I want the conflict to be realistic. In the real world, though we like to think in terms of good guys vs. bad guys (we Americans are especially notorious for this), conflict is complicated. There are heroes and villains on both sides of every conflict and, though history is generally written by the victors, there's no "right side" in realistic conflicts.

From the beginning, one of the guiding principles of Shadows & Silver has been that there would be no overarching good vs. evil conflict, so it doesn't work to have traditional goblin raiders or the dragon that terrorizes the countryside. Rather, who you root for will depend on your perspective. A good example here is the War of Burdean Sovereignty. From the perspective of Burdeans, Burdea's sovereignty was more important than the political unity of Adunay. The belief in the ability of small states to govern themselves compelled them to action against what they perceived to be an oppressive regime. This is contrasted by the other Adunean states, which believed the strength of a united Adunay was more important than the rights of any individual state. As a character in the world, your viewpoint likely comes down to whether you see yourself as a citizen of Adunay or of your state. Burdeans, for example, are fiercely protective of their independence, and see themselves as Burdeans first and Aduneans second.

Burdea versus Adunay is a representation of the conflict of political identity, but also of security versus liberty. Most soldiers on either side of the war did not sit down to think about where they stood on the individual issues. Rather, the source of their national pride determined how they reacted to the different conflicts the War created.

Second, history is not linear, not just a series of events. Rather, it is a complex web of ideas, actions, and consequences. The effects of any action can be felt across the centuries, just as a butterfly beating its wings in the Pacific causes a hurricane in Florida. It's the way of the world, and the way of a realistic setting.

In S&S, the war with Burdea had consequences that continue to this day. For one, it caused unrest and political dissent in the populace at large on both sides. Social upheaval became a daily occurrence. The infighting also weakened the security of Adunay, making it vulnerable to those both within and without. The old monarchies fought for control even as the coalition devolved into chaos. In reaction to that, a wave of conquests swept Adunay, culminating in the establishment of an Adunean Empire ruled by martial law. Power and wealth lead the Empire to attack its neighbors, and the resulting war with the northern Krunags led to the Empire's fall, once again plunging the land into chaos. Today, though the Confederation has nominally established control over Adunay, but the revolutions continue. Hundreds of factions pull the government this way and that, others seek its downfall entirely.

Thirdly, it's important for the players to have lots of adversaries, but no real villain. Even if the PCs were to put aside their differences and pursue a common goal (how unrealistic is that?), there shouldn't be a Big Bad Evil Guy™ to focus on. Remember, conflict is not found in bad guys; it's found in ideas you oppose.

For a real world example, consider the Palestinian vs. Israel conflict. The conflict is not between people but between ideas. It's not a good guys versus bad guys conflict or a terrorists versus democracy conflict. It's not Hamas versus Mossad. It's one ethnic group's nationalism versus another group's nationalism. It's an idea versus an idea. So, while the idea you support has opponents, there is no "bad guy" to focus your attention on. To win the conflict, you have to unseat an idea, not a leader.

In S&S, a similar conflict can be found in the colonization of former Nerath by the Aduneans and Salicians. These countries see themselves as bringing civilization to the backwards people of the eastern Plain, and they inevitably find themselves in conflict with the native peoples, who don't take kindly to being treated like the scum of the earth. The real conflict here is in the ideas. The West believes that, because of its technological superiority, it has the right to the resources of the East, and that spreading their civilization to them and ridding them of the "Brown Menace" is more than payment. The East believes its ways are its own, regardless of any technical inferiority, and that its lands are not open for exploitation by Western powers.

Finally, conflict exists independently of the PCs. It's not there so the PCs have something to fix. It's there because that's the way things are. If the PCs want to jump in and try to fix things, great. But if their shortsightedness simply messes things up more, even better. National and ethnic conflict is not easily settled, especially when it has lasted for centuries, and creating the illusion of true conflict within the game world requires a lot of forethought.

Think about the role you want conflict to play in your setting. Do you want bad guys versus good guys, or do you want something more fluid, more dynamic? How do you plan to complicate things? Do you want to try to teach the players a lesson as they unravel conflicts into their component ideas? Or do you want a sort of sandbox for them to deal with real-world conflicts within the game?

For those of you participating in S&S, what conflicts would you like to see played out? Most interested here in conflicts of ideas as listed above, but perhaps you have ideas for various factions that might vie against each other?

Finding Inspiration

I'm having fun ripping my hair out over the ambient system (which, though I hesitate to give any solid details yet, has become an epic-scope AI system), and reading Casa's latest post reminds me of the need to keep my inspiration up.

Building a PW is a lot of work. Like, scary lot. To the point where you almost imagine who in their right minds would do it without getting paid. It helps, of course, that I'm not content to cobble together a bunch of existing scripts and insist on rewriting everything (even if it ends up being the exact same code) I find just so it does exactly what I want. Still, I'd have imagined I'd get more done in the now over two years that I've been building.

So how does one find the inspiration for continuing a project that has already taken so much time and will yet consume so much more than it already has? I suppose on some level it's by reminding yourself that you've invested too much time and effort to quit now. But on another, it's the thought of how beautiful the finished product will be.

I began S&S as a labor of love, and along the way I've found others who are similarly entranced with both Neverwinter Nights and the opportunity to tell a compelling story. That love, I think, will be something that players will feel when they begin playing on the server, and it also means I'll be happier with the final product.

Yesterday I sat back and began to imagine playing in the world. Not just how the systems would work, or what the conversations would say, or how the areas would be designed. No, I began to think about the role-play that would come out of it, the stories I want to tell, and the characters I want to grow in it. Not so much from the point of view of a writer and a DM but from that of a player. I felt the atmosphere and the weight of the themes that flow through the world. I let my mind wander through the broad spectrum of people I'd meet, the places I'd see, and secrets I'd uncover. And even though I was imagining what I've already been trying to create, seeing it through the fresh new eyes of a prospective player gave me a new vigor. I don't want to just get this thing built and run it; I want to play in it, too.

How do you keep up your inspiration in your project?

Lore snippet: One of the causes for the current tensions between the states of the Confederacy of Adun was the War of Burdean Sovereignty. Burdea, a state in Upper Adunay that suffered heavily in the war with Nerath, tried to leave the coalition rather than submit to the rule of the new Confederation government. Claiming Burdea was sovereign over its own affairs, Major General Alexei Graudyn led his troops in storming Fort Lussk, a Confederation stronghold. He was hailed as a folk hero and continued his raids against Confederation forts for fourteen months. When Burdean Prime Minister Hendrick Chatham, fearing Graudyn's political aspirations, had him arrested and hanged for treason without a trial, Burdea plunged into civil war. The Confederation leapt at the chance to crush the vulnerable republic. All that remains of its cities are the blackened husks of buildings, and most of its people live in refugee camps throughout Adunay.

Shameless Cross-Promotion

I don't know how many people read this blog, other than those who are helping with or actively working on Shadows & Silver. Nevertheless, I thought I'd suggest that those of you who aren't in our little group take a look at some of those links in the sidebar there. Most of those helping with Shadows & Silver have their own projects, and most of those people have their own blogs detailing their progress.

In particular, I want to note Ben Harrison's new blog "The End Times", chronicling the development of his new project. Though Ben has been actively working in the NWN community for years now, he's undertaking a new PW project and made his first blog post today. Ben's been a big supporter of S&S, and he's helped Casa tremendously. I look forward to seeing his progress and (hopefully) getting to assist in making his dream project come true.

Best of luck, Ben. :)

A little more detail

Thought I'd take a break from scripting the ambient system to make a blog post.

So in the last entry I posted an exceedingly boring screenshot of a dude in a brown overcoat and equated him to one of the most famous arch-mages in D&D-geek culture. What gives? We'll talk a little more about Dante here.

Origin
Little is known about Dante save that he's a retired Churchman. As an Archonist, he traveled about the Plain seeking knowledge useful to the Church. After the most recent war with Nerath (about forty years ago), he retired to Midport, using the considerable wealth he gained in the war to build an inn. It was there that he founded the Order of the Ouroboros, an association of alchemists and adventure-seekers who continue his work seeking out occult knowledge in th Plain.

But behind every truth, there is a deeper truth. Dante, in fact, is responsible for much of the state of the world, and especially for the progress of alchemic study. Though I won't spoil any possible plots for those of you who may play on S&S when it is finally released, I'll let it drop that Dante is who you can thank for the triumph of science over mysticism in western culture.

Well, that was disappointingly minimal in the way of exposition. Okay, here's another, more juicy fact: Dante is one of the controlling investors in Aether Technologies, Inc. (better known as AetherTech). AetherTech is at the forefront of alchemic research in Emorlad, and its inventions are creeping into every corner of Adunay. It is both loved as a symbol of Adunean ingenuity and despised as a pit of Machiavellian bureaucracy. AetherTech is deeply entrenched into Adunean politics as well, and there's some speculation among the less patrotic of Adunay that AetherTech started the current war with the northern state of Kruna to profit from the sale of arms.

Motives
So Dante has his fingers in some not-so-nice business. I thought he was supposed to be a good guy, you say.

One of the underlying truths of human nature (and a concept which I hope to reflect in the morally grey world of Shadows & Silver) is that there are no such things as good people or bad people. In truth, there is good and bad in each of us. In some the good is stronger; in others, the bad is stronger. It's rather like the old Native American story, when the old man tells his grandson, "Whichever dog I feed the most is the winner."

It may seem a pedantic distinction, but it's not. In fact, it's a distinction that, if we made more often, would vastly improve both the quality of our role-play and the quality of our lives. Both in our games and in RL, we like to separate things into boxes in a futile attempt to quantify the world. The adventurers are good, the goblins are evil. The Allies were good, the Nazis were evil. It's an easy way to approach the world. It's convenient, and simple, to imagine yourself on the side of good.

But flip the coin to the other side. The Nazis believed they were doing good, for example. Solidifying control of the world under what they presumed was the rightful ruling race was, in their minds, one of the greatest goods they could achieve. In their war and their genocides, they believed they were accomplishing a noble and righteous goal.

Those goblins raiding the caravan likely believe the same. They're defending their territory from the ever-encroaching humans, taking back some small measure of the wealth stolen from their land. Curious, isn't it, how we put them into the "evil" box just because their goals conflict with ours.

So what is all of this to say? As Socrates tells us, no man willingly does evil. If he does evil, it's because he is trying to do good, either for himself or for another; his reason and, thus, his methods are simply clouded. Dante... well, his reason is clouded sometimes, though he refuses to admit it. He's not dogmatic, like many Churchmen. Since he's one of the more powerful forces in Emorlad, he tends to try to "fix" things, attempting to remake the world the way he thinks it should be. Unlike your typical, mislead tyrant, though, he sees himself simply as an agent of the change, not the destined ruler. He's quite happy to work in the background (or have others do the work for him) in order to make things right.

As the saying goes, you have to break some eggs to make an omelette.

Elminster... S&S Style!

So I've gotten a bit bored with scripting. Things seem to work alright on the ambient system, but I haven't the energy to test it thoroughly or to try putting it to use. I'm itching to build again, but we haven't finished work on our haks, so that's off the table. Well, no, not entirely. I can do some stuff with 1.69 content.

I got to designing a coupla NPCs. Here's one, an NPC named Dante.

Dante is the owner of the Haven Inn, a cozy little place in Manheim Court in Midport. He's a genial old fellow, and a retired Churchman and adventurer. Few but his friends know that he is also a powerful alchemist. In fact, Dante's years of research have fueled the current age of scientific discovery. Despite this, Dante is humble and down-to-earth. Though he no longer goes out on adventures, preferring his comfortable life in the city, Dante heads the Order of the Ouroboros, a group of adventuresome alchemists.

Dante is the Elminster of S&S, though he doesn't look it. In fact, he's largely responsible for the retreat of the Nerathim forty years ago. The question is, though, how do you keep him from overshadowing the PCs? In the FR setting, for example, you have to wonder why powerful NPCs are always giving out quests instead of just using scry-and-die tactics. In most settings the answer is that these NPC powerhouses are just too busy with the really big epic planar threats to handle the goblin invasion. That's what the PCs are there for.

Dante's reason for delegating is much simpler: he's old. Dante has had his fair share of adventure, and it's time for him to settle down and relax. Why risk your neck out in the wilderness when someone younger and fitter can do it?

I've got a lot of story ideas for Dante, and a lot of secret lore, too. But you don't think I'm going to tell you them here, do you? :)

Ambience

I like it when games come alive. I want to see characters going about their lives oblivious to me, proving there's more to the world than just my character. I like seeing NPCs go to work, grab a meal, and chat with each other. I like seeing them vary their activities from time to time.

I also like being able to make that happen. I've hashed together the beginnings of an ambient system that allows NPCs to be given hourly schedules rather than the day/night waypoint walking used by NWN. The waypoint system is just the beginning, though. It gets the NPCs where they need to go with great flexibility, and it allows the builders to attach scripts to waypoints that the NPCs can fire when they arrive. That's the skeleton, and now I'm putting meat on the bones by designing the scripts that will run on the waypoints.

What will it be able to do when it's done? Imagine a farmer rising just before dawn and heading to the barn to milk the cows before the sun rises. Next he heads to feed the chickens. Then to till the fields on the back forty. At midday, he returns to the farmhouse where his wife (who has her own schedule) pours him some lemonade as they sit in the shade. Then it's back to work, this time planting corn rows. Before sunset he heads to the local swimming hole to cool down, then it's back home for a meager dinner. Finally, bed so he can rest and do it all over again.

Now, that's almost certainly more complicated than most of our NPCs' schedules will be, but it's not beyond the realm of possibility. One thing is for sure, though. You won't just have NPCs standing on the street corner and staring dumbly at you.

Lore snippet: The Confederation of Adun was founded desperately forty years ago. Nerath, the eastern empire of old, swept across Emorlad, claiming the territory by divine right. The splintered Adunean states, weak from civil war, were no match for the might of Nerath individually. Forced by the Church of the Archons to put aside their differences, the states formed a defensive pact and successfully drove the invaders out. The pact later became the basis for the Confederation, but the tensions between the states remain strong.

Slow progress

Hey there, Sherincall here with our progress report.

Progress has been really slow this month due to a very busy life we're forced to deal with. However, it is not right to say we haven't been productive. On the contrary, we keep getting new ideas, really cool ones too. Unfortunately, that results in a much bigger to do list. Anyway, what has been done (or almost done) is a very nice ambient system (Squatting Monk) and a mana based spellcasting system (Sherincall). Here's a list of script systems taken from a 'Builder's Guide' I'm working on.

Finished systems:

• Core Framework (SS) - Authors: Edward Beck, Squatting Monk
• Generic System (G) - Authors: Squatting Monk, Sherincall
• Persistent Reputation and Reaction System (PRR) - Authors: Vendalus, Squatting Monk
• Experience System (XP) - Authors: Squatting Monk, Knat
• Spawn System (SP) - Author: Sherincall
• Persistent Storage Chests (PSC) - Authors: HerMyT, Sherincall, Squatting Monk
• Persistent Quests & Journals (PQJ) - Author: Squatting Monk
• Hunger, Thirst and Fatigue (HTF) - Authors: Edward Beck, Squatting Monk
• Chat Control System (CHAT) - Author: Sherincall
• Rest System (REST) - Authors: Edward Beck, Squatting Monk
• Bleeding and Death (BD) - Authors: Edward Beck, Squatting Monk
• Visual Effects System (VFX) - Authors: Sunjammer, gaoneng, Sherincall
• Cutscene System (CS) - Author: John "Gestalt" Bye
• Dynamic Dialog System (DLG) - Authors: Paul Speed, Greyhawk0, Sherincall

In the works:

• Ambient System - Squatting Monk
• Spellcasting System - Sherincall

To Do:

• Inn System
• Horses and Pack Animals
• Crafting and Alchemy
• Bulletin Boards and Newspapers
• Custom AI
• Player and DM Tools
• Weather System

There is light at the end of the tunnel, though. Starting June 5th, I'll have a few more hours per day for scripting, and starting July 5th, I'll have a few more.. About 8. My estimate is that by August all scripting will be done.

Apart from scripting, the other thing that requires a lot of time is custom content. Placeables are done, though a bit outdated (we'll need to look at the stuff that was released in the past month). Tilesets are half-way done. The other half will require a skilled modeler. We also have a ruleset base, which we'll build upon. I estimate the haks will be completed sometime mid August.

After that, it's building till we drop.

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In other news, we have a few more enthusiastic people helping us (A big round of applause for Ociros and Esayitch). Though they are busy as well, more people means more progress. It will all change soon, I'm certain.

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And finally, some lore (Pardon my poor narative skills.)

Umec Adkal

Umec is a respected noble of Midport. In his early days he was a famous warrior and adventurer, before he got crippled. Now, in his early 40s, Umec is a successful merchant, dealing in exotic trinkets. He is the employer of the Purple Masks, an assassin squad he uses to get rid of his enemies and aquire valuable trinkets.

Umec does not have a family. He seems completely emotionless, caring only about profit. The truth is that he has become obsessed with a relic he had acquired. A book that belonged to a powerful alchemist, a book he believes holds many secrets known to very few men. He has been studying it for years, yet hasn't been able to decipher and understand the writings contained within.

Umec is not an irrational person, he is well aware of the dangers he is putting himself into. He will never act prematurely, and always carefully calculates everything before making a decision. Ever since his retirement from adventuring, he has not failed in anything. His prosperity is slow but certain.

Anna

People who know her true name, Sarah Sol'Dath, are very rare, and often get even rarer once she finds one of them. Anna is possibly the deadliest of assassins in Midport. She is currently working for one of the nobles, Umec Adkal, who has given her a place in his mansion to use as headquarters for her squad known as the Purple Masks.

Despite being a professional killer, Anna is not without morals and codes. She has a perverted sense of loyalty, and considers betrayal worse than anything. She will cruelly punish anyone who betrays anyone, even her enemies. She dislikes pointless killing, and will always avoid ending a life unless necessary. This does not mean that she will forfeit an assignment she has been given. If she has been hired to kill a man, she will not stop until one of them is dead. It is not uncommon for Anna to give charity and help other people, especially children.

Sarah is the daughter of an elven priestess and one of their nobles. After her father has done some very wicked things, both him and Sarah were exiled. Sarah later killed her abusive father during their visit to Midport and tried to survive on her own. She thrived on the streets, and rose high in the ranks of a guild. The leaders of that guild thought her to be a threat and tried to eliminate her. She viciously punished all who were involved in that betrayal and with the remaining members founded the Purple Masks.

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I don't have any new screenshots to show, so here's an old one, to break the monotony.

A long overdue update..

Hello all, Sherincall here.. Sorry we've abandoned this blog lately, we're both very busy with building. No matter, here comes a full update to make up for leaving you folk in the dark.

First of all, scripting. Progress is really good, and soon we should have all the basic (and not so basic) systems in place. The only big piece that is really missing is a crafting system. However, my SHC project originally started as a crafting system, and luckily it's very modular, so we can recycle huge portions of that code. All in all, scripting is the least of our problems.

Haks. These things are problematic, as by the time we've collected everything we want, a lot of new content appears. So, best approach is to wait for as long as we can. We have the placeables pretty-much finished, and they are at 55 megabytes 7-zipped. Tilesets are a bit more annoying, as for example, Gothic City was made using old BioWare models before full camera control was unlocked, and is thus missing geometry on the bottom side of the models. These bugs have been fixed by BioWare and CTP, and we need to take all those models, and apply the gothic texture to them. Not really a hard job, just tedious. Then, some textures in the Gothic City are dull and boring.. Or just don't fit, so there's the job of retexturing as well. I think (hope) other tilesets won't need this much work.

And now, here are some screenshots using default tilesets to show our placeables..

And finally a lore tidbit: Here's one of our NPCs.

Alaenna the Witch

Alaenna is a half-elven sage, alchemist and sorceress, living in a tower about 15 miles away from Midport. The church of the Archons despises her, and has given her a bad reputation. She doesn't really care, though, as long as she is left alone. It is said that the church had attempted to remove her by force in the past, but was unsuccessful, however it is uncertain how much of that is true. One thing is certain, should the church, or anyone else invade, she would never leave her tower and valley again, and is willing to fight to her death.

Alaenna is very fond of mirrors. Rumor has it that she has the ability to create fast and slow mirrors, that allow you to look a few seconds into the future / past. Alaenna is not naturally beautiful, however, through alchemy and practice she has managed to change her facial traits to that of a very attractive woman. This is very exhausting though, and when she is alone she will relax her face and revert to her original appearance.

Her only servant, and closest friend is Isrrak, a blind monk, who is one of the last connoisseurs of the forbidden alphabet, symbols that when written in a special manner cause death to any who see them. Isrrak speaks only when it is absolutely necessary, so most who've met him think he is dumb as well. Alaenna sometimes asks him to inscribe the forbidden symbols on her eye-lids, to keep her protected from enemies while she's asleep.
Alaenna spends an hour every day living the life of her mother. She dresses in her clothes, and acts like she would. During this trance, she forgets all the details of her own life and only knows what her mother knew. This is her way of repaying her mother for dying while giving birth to her.

Alaenna values knowledge above anything else, and will always trade an information for an information. Even material objects she is willing to part with for a good tale or some news. Once she gives herself an assignment of understanding something, she will be able to do little else until she is satisfied with her knowledge of that thing - Meaning until she has full understanding of everything about it.

Onward!

The blog has officially been moved to blog.shadowsandsilver.com, though the old address will still work. I've also finished moving the forums to forum.shadowsandsilver.com, so all that's left to do now is get the new site to have some other content. That will be a while, though, since there's not much to put up yet.

Lore tidbit: Midport is a city-state, with a republican form of government. It is officially a member of the Confederation of Adun, an alliance of states on the Adun River Plain. The Confederation is weak, and Albus Engelhardt, governor of Midport, largely ignores its rule. He uses the city's strategic position at the mouth of the Adun River to control trade in the region, squeezing his political opposition into respecting his autonomy. Midport's upper class profits greatly from this, so few oppose his cruel and efficient rule.

Progress!

But not the kind with screenshots, unfortunately. I've finished the lite version of my core scripting system (thanks to Edward Beck, creator of HCR2, whose code I murdered trying to pare down) so now Sherincall can start scripting things too. I'm getting to work on a basic rest system and then fixing up the nearly-completed XP system for the new framework. We've also got a whole lot of other things in discussion, including firearms, some player background customization, and that magic system I mentioned (though I don't think it will be as spectacular as I'd originally hoped, due to time constraints).

Also in the news, I managed to purchase the domain name shadowsandsilver.com, so I hope to be moving the blog and the forums soon.

How about a lore tidbit in the meantime?

The world Shadows & Silver is set in is called Enna, roughly translated from ancient elven as "tears", while the continent Midport rests on is Emorlad, roughly translated as "it is barren". Elven culture has left its mark on scholarly work, and in more than just names of places. Most of the ancient history of the world was recorded by the elves, who possessed a writted language long before men. It is only through the account of the elves that we know of the gods' wars, and it is only because of their knowledge of nature and its courses that we know so much of alchemy.

Ironically, elves have all but vanished from the world. They're rarely seen in the cities, having been less able to adapt to the changes of society than any other race. Most of them cling to their old ways in whatever scrap of wilderness they can find. What elves are found in the cities tend to be very hesitant in getting involved with society. Scholars speak of this trait as the Shame of the Elves, though not even the elves are certain what they could be ashamed of. What is certain, though, is that the long-lived elves have watched the magic that is their life-blood drain away from Emorlad. In a world devoid of magic, there's little place for them, and they know it.