Yay, more background stuff!
So since I can't access IV at work, I've been on the clock playing plenty of Neverwinter Nights instead, that hoary ten-year-old single player and multiplayer game based off of D&D 3rd Edition. Its flexibility has helped NWN stand up to the test of time pretty well, and my favorite haunt--the Pirate Isles server, set in
Prespur, the
Pirate Isles and the
Sea of Fallen Stars, which are part of D&D's Forgotten Realms setting.
After rolling up a test character or two, I finally settled on my main: a Cleric of Umberlee. In the Forgotten Realms, there are several ocean gods, and when your scenario is set in a large chain of islands, it stands to reason that the ocean gods are pretty influential. There are several deities worshipped purely by sea-dwelling races (such as the kuo-toa's
Blibdoolpoolp, the sahuagin's
Sekolah and the giants'
Ulutiu) but the heavy-hitters are the elven god
Deep Sashelas, the Good protector god
Valkur, the Neutral and impartial god
Istishia and the Evil destroyer goddess
Umberlee.
Valkur's all about protecting seafarers and ensuring safe journeys and calm waters, while Umberlee's all about sending horrible sea storms and krakens your way if you don't pay her a fat tribute before you cast off...and even then, she may smash your ship and drown you anyway, just for the hell of it. And Istishia somehow manages to be friends with both of them--even though Valkur and Umberlee hate each other's guts--which goes to show how neutral he really is.
The good news for clerics of Umberlee is that practically every port town is so scared to death of Umberlee that pretty much every sailor--even the goody-two-shoes ones--give Umberlee prayers and toss money into the sea before leaving port, and her clerics can walk right down the street unmolested in most port towns around Faerun. Unfortunately for Serrica (my Umberlant cleric), Prespur's two port towns both have a pretty strong Valkurite presence, so with the complement of a high Wisdom (17 and climbing), she is the thinking man's Chaotic Evil: lying, deceptive, manipulative, opportunistic, treacherously political, unpredictable and undermining, with the ranks in Bluff, Persuade and Intimidate to back it up. And knowing that the Valkurites would ferret her out immediately if she tried to pass herself off as a Valkurite, she's been passing herself off as an Istishian instead. It seems to have worked so far.
(She can walk on water too! 
)Serrica's campaign of deception serves two purposes: to allay people's suspicions about her true objective, and to indebt people into aiding her--or to at least allow her to do as she pleases--when the time comes to complete that true objective in a master stroke. That true objective is to build and consecrate a temple on Prespur, giving the Church of Umberlee--and Umberlee herself--a foothold on Prespur's soil. After some back-and-forth correspondence with her Church, Serrica learned that there was once a shrine to Umberlee somewhere on Prespur, but the cleric attending it fell off the face of the planet, as did every other cleric sent to find out what happened. And after a while of questing, Serrica finally succeeded where others had fallen, finding the lost shrine to Umberlee, which had since been defiled by a nearby harpy flock in the name of
Ardat the Unavowed.
Serrica has been killing harpies, gathering materials and making plans to move the shrine, reconsecrate it and restore it to service ever since. And ideally, by the time Valkur's people catch on, it'll be too late and the Church of Umberlee will have a foothold too entrenched for the Valkurites to force out. With a greater cleric presence, Umberlee's power over the islands will grow drastically in magnitude, an alarming thought for anyone who actually has to live in Prespur and the Pirate Isles.
Chaotic Evil characters can be fun, if you know how to play them right.
Umberlee's Domains are Chaos, Destruction, Evil and Water, but Neverwinter Nights doesn't have Chaos as a Domain. Not that it matters; I would have picked Evil and Water for Serrica's Domains anyway. And I did. Water and the other elemental Domains are underrated; being able to cast Ice Storm as a Level 5 Cleric spell is sweet, as is being able to Rebuke elementals as if they were undead. A certain gnoll cave on that server has water mephits, and turning the mephits against the gnolls was one of the coolest moments I've ever experienced on that server.
(Or it could be that
mephits are Outsiders instead of elementals...which still wouldn't matter, because Serrica's
Evil domain lets her Rebuke Outsiders as if they were undead. Either way, Serrica just flashed her holy symbol of Umberlee--that red staff with the purple crystal up there--and scared up some temporary mephit-flavored sword fodder.)
So I went and doodled up the details of Serrica's overarching quest, as it stands. More doodles will be coming, as Serrica (and I) cook up various designs for the new shrine (or temple, if I can gather enough wood, metal and stone) incorporating various amounts of materials, as seen in the doodles here.
I may have to fix a few things in these pics. I just added a west face to that ridge in the first pic, and I think Serrica's left upper arm is a bit too long in that pic with the harpy. I'll deal with it.
Subject: My Own Arty Stuff! 
Fri Mar 06, 2009 9:53 am
