What were authors' plans for quests?

iandarksword

Very simple question, prior to the Foundry being disabled, what were authors' plans for quests? What type of stories were you thinking/writing/planning? Obviously at this point it's questionable we'll be able to finish any of them. So use this thread to share what, if anything, you all had in mind.

tyfighter77

Great topic iandarksword.

I was halfway through an extended take on B1: In search of the Unknown. I was really proud of how it was coming along.

I also had 8 more ideas in the pipeline.

kreatyve

I was going to make a quest where people can go back to Lostmauth's Lair after the dragon had been defeated, and try to fight off the orcs that had invaded, to get all that treasure that got left behind. It was gonna have a funny ending. I had started working on it a long time ago, but was having issues getting the slow fall thing to work correctly so I abandoned it for a time, but was planning to pick it back up at some point.

valcontar73

I already did 16 foundries, but my last one was about to recreate the kelemvor realm / plane.

gif hosting

But I guess it will never see the light...

Other plans I had, it was to do a tutorial step by step for new authors, again, I'm afraid it will never see the light.

gornonthecob

Can't say I didn't see the closure of the Foundry coming. Especially since the Guild Hall addition can be completely bypassed with Foundry tools.

I only had 2 more Foundry ideas left (and probably would have just combined them to avoid working with the platform)

I wanted to finish my last Harper Chronicles quest in which players travel to the Whispering Carverns, guided once again by the Mysterious Stranger. The task would lead you to fighting a vampire lord who would not die until you find and destroy his coffin. In the end, you'd learn that this vampire was the one who had slain Akera's parents from the Final Prophecy campaign, and that the Mysterious Stranger had actually been a Moonstar Agent all along. With the quest complete, you would have been inducted as a Moonstar.

The quest would have been a departure from my previous quest styles, featuring smaller, highly detailed areas in the same vain as the Foundry quest "Journey to Barovia"

Oh well! Farewell Foundry! Thanks for the fun!

iandarksword

I had nearly completed the Harper Chronicles: Blacklake. In fact it was live prior to the October outage, but still needed a few tweaks before being featured. I was in the midst of my Harper Chronicles quest for The Chasm, in which players investigate what Tualo the Bright was looking for when he was murdered at the request of the Mysterious Traveler. The quest had players revisit Tualo's street, at daytime and populated by various wizards, ruffians, and lackeys. You also stepped into a magic shop with bookcases, book imps named after the three musketeers, and a strange large mirror. Through a series of dialogs you find that Tualo owned an apothecary in Beggars Nest. Upon investigating that apothecary, you are attacked by Blue Fire Cultists also in search of Tualo's findings.
Until Mod 11, I didn't have a direction after the attack, I was stuck at that particular point in the plot line. However, when the plot of the Cloaked Ascendency was revealed, I was going to send players into the Chasm, then into the Cloak Tower to discover hints of wizards returning from the Far Realm. The "key" to Tualo's research would have actually been the Fragmented Key of Stars, which would be lost in Far Realm. Players would have to escape a yet to be determined dangerous situation via a portal that would send them back to the magic shop, now wrecked except for the mirror, to be berated for the mess they made by the book imps.

iandarksword

Well, I had a synopsis of my Harper Chronicles Chasm quest typed up. The forums ate it when I went to edit Spellplague Caverns to Far Realm. Fitting, to say the least. The Harper Chronicles community campaign was detailed in this thread: https://www.arcgames.com/en/forums/neverwinter/#/discussion/1218094/an-invitation-for-experienced-foundy-authors/p1

hustin1

I was partway through a sequel to Harper Chronicles: Cap Snatchers. I was having trouble deciding between some alternatives to the plot, though:

1. After being rescued, the redcaps eventually returned to the now-empty Goblin Complex and looted whatever they thought might be useful -- including all of the books that the "goblin" mages had brought with them. Redcap Fey magic is wholly unlike what the "goblins" were using and they inadvertently did something to gain the "goblins'" masters' attention. Said masters still require redcap magic to further their ends and decide to attack the redcaps directly, right in the heart of their homes. The enemies in this case are either liches who are so ancient that their connection to their phylacteries is failing and require a more permanent solution or are vampires who are looking for a way to eliminate their reliance on blood. The "goblins" were no such thing -- they were polymorphed servants.

2. The redcaps in the village send a message through the Iliyanbruen elves asking for your help. Malabog is upset that they have refused to help him any further (because he abandoned them to the "goblins" in the first place) and is now sending trolls and cyclopses to regain control over them. The redcaps have thus far managed to kill his soldiers using ambush tactics, but they see themselves eventually losing without help. The mission is a straightforward "defend the village" quest, with one twist: here and there you learn things that are very odd. You run into Triste, and she claims no knowledge of your first meeting with her near the redcap village. A redcap shows you a book that he took from the goblin complex that he's been trying (and failing) to understand. You can't read goblin but the paper appears to be more likely of Elven manufacture. The redcaps have been calling for assistance from neighboring redcap villages, and you see a couple of redcaps using primitive bows in their ambush tactics. However, the arrows appear to be Elven in quality. At the end you point these out to the Iliyanbruen elf who first briefed you at the beginning, and he deflects the question, pointing out the importance of having redcaps who are outside the influence of Fomorians -- and most importantly, Fomorian magic. Were the "goblins" really goblins? You wonder.

I'm not sure if either of these plots is the best one or if I should consider something else, though. I hate having writer's block.

kreatyve

iandarksword said:

Well, I had a synopsis of my Harper Chronicles Chasm quest typed up. The forums ate it when I went to edit Spellplague Caverns to Far Realm. Fitting, to say the least. The Harper Chronicles community campaign was detailed in this thread: https://www.arcgames.com/en/forums/neverwinter/#/discussion/1218094/an-invitation-for-experienced-foundy-authors/p1

I forced the forum to regurgitate it (apologies!) and gave it a good slapping so it will never again eat one of your comments.

iandarksword

Thanks @kreatyve!

sandukutupu

Hello, I was working on "The Mysterious Artifact" - I saved my work to my hard drive just in case the Foundry returns.

Here is the job board posting; As you browse the job postings you see: REWARD: Recover Artifact - Please see Xander Moss at the "Mystic Swizzle" magic shop. You tear the posting off the board and head for Coriol Street.

Upon entering the shop you meet Xander Moss who wants you to recover an artifact from a graveyard. It is only after you retrieve the artifact that the real story begins.

I also had created a custom boss that represented the 7 deadly sins. You fought The Pride of Barzakh and once killed it divides into The Wrath and The Envy. They would also divide into 2 more sins upon death to complete Greed and Lust along with Gluttony and Sloth. After defeating his creations you were granted access to Barzakh himself.

I added some humor and I was polishing up the dialog and working on background music and environmental effects when they decided the best feature of the game was disposable. I fear it won't be long before they find some excuse to shutdown the one on STO. If anyone on the team STO accidentally reads this; don't let them "data mine" your Foundry.

dzaims

At the end of 'Sleepy in Cea Tul', I had introduced a Githzerai character. I was going to spring off that into into another trilogy of some trans-planar hunting of Illithids, and spend more time working on a useable Githyanki custom costume for a clash there..

torontodave

Damn this post to the nine hells Ian. ;D


The third Spelljammer quest starts in the hold of the Drake. The boss from the 2nd quest is in the Brig. It starts with his interrogation (with lots of NPC expressions from behind the bars.)

Then an attempted escape combat sequence. He [I forgot the Scro's name] is subdued and the questioning continues. The mindflayers laboratory is explorable, complete with an EMH [emergency medical hologram "please state the nature of your medical emergency" .. more star trek humour.]

^^ this is all already complete btw. ;D

A plan is put into motion to break into the .. Observer's guild vault, in order to blow up the currency they use to control the market. etc etc

The third quest would end after breaking into the vault and setting the charges.

The fourth quest would be the escape from the vault. I hadn't decided on what to do with the charges yet. To explode or not to explode? ;D

iandarksword

Well, things are up for a bit @torontodave so I'm doing my best to fulfill what I planned for now. We'll see if I can actually pull it off... ;p

torontodave

I'm still on hiatus until Cryptic can prove they actually know what the Foundry is.. and they make a move to support it in some public way.

@mimicking#6533

zebular

My plans were to recreate my paper & pencil adventures, both used and unused, from my FR campaign I've been DMing since '93. I had a fun run with it early on in the game but now I'm waiting for The Foundry to become a focus of development like it should have been long ago and was marketed as being during Alpha and Beta.

iandarksword

I'm still active. Still working on both the Blacklake and Chasm quests. I've had a couple real life opportunities that have occupied some free time recently, but still getting some editing time in.