R.A. Salvatore has added decades of lore to Dungeons and Dragons and the Forgotten Realms and some of the game's most iconic characters can be traced back to his long-running series of fantasy novels. The latest Neverwinter module features another collaboration with Salvatore (and his son, Geno) and helps bridge the gap between the first two The Way of the Drow novels.
The new Neverwinter module, Northdark Reaches, features some appearances by very exciting and familiar faces from the novels (and from DnD lore). That said, some players may be a little surprised to find Drizzt and others (like Cattie-brie) missing from the central narrative. There's actually a pretty obvious explanation for their absence and for the spotlight landing elsewhere.
Game ZXC recently had a chance to sit down with Neverwinter's Narrative Director, Winter Mullenix and Principal Lead Game Designer, Randy Mosiondz and chat about the narrative of Northdark Reaches and which great ideas had to get cut or saved for future modules...
Game ZXC: Wow, Out of the Abyss! Haven't thought about that book in forever. That's a great one. Were there any cool ideas that you or the Salvatores came to the table with that got left on the cutting room floor that didn't quite work out this time?
Winter: Countless ideas. When you're writing fiction your boundaries are ever-expanding. You don't have to worry about the confines of the game engine, a scope plan, a capacity plan. So there were just so many that we threw at each other and that we loved that they were sticking to the wall but we just had to take them down. There were so many more places we wanted to go and explore. And I don't want to say too much because some of that did become part of the next module. But there were lots of things and characters we wanted to explore, but we also had to think about who and what was available at this point in time. Where is Drizzt right now? Where is Catti-brie?
Randy: Yeah, some of the characters are just off doing other things based on the timelines of the novels. So we'll just have to include them in the next module and swap out some of the cast as the story evolves. I think having that change over of voices and perspectives is great.
Winter: It's a like a Salvatore book, where it's not always following the same characters. So it fits perfectly.
With module 25 arriving sometime in 2023 and acting as a second part to this storyline, it seems very likely that some absent characters may ultimately make their way to Northdark Reaches and the surrounding Underdark to make an appearance. Module 24 just launched this week though, so players will have to enjoy this content and its characters for now and way a while to see what module 25 has in store for them.
Neverwinter is free-to-play on PC, PlayStation, and Xbox consoles. Northdark Reaches launches on November 8, 2022 on PC.
