Last week on the Neverwinter Foundry Focus we took a look at the quest “The Prime Material” by @Drakedge2. Neverwinter takes place in the D&D campaign setting known as the Forgotten Realms. The Realms; however, are not the only campaign setting in D&D. Gary Gygax’s original setting was the world of Greyhawk, there have also been a number of settings that are more obscure and less standard fantasy such as Dark Sun and Planescape.
Many of you may know of the Planescape campaign setting due to it being made insanely popular by the Black Isle RPG masterpiece Planescape: Torment. While this campaign does not try and recreate that game, it does try and recreate the Planescape universe in Neverwinter. The Prime Material is the first quest in the campaign Planescape - The Skeleton Key.
We start off on our adventure by contacting Alrica Fenta in the merchant district. Alrica directs us to seek out a noblewoman who entrusted a note with Alrica for us. Right off the bat you are provided a note from the NPC. While we could have been left just to assume we had received the note Drakedge2 takes the time to make sure that we actually get an item to enhance our immersion. You will also receive a few other items in the first quest such as the Spirit Anchor which allows us to travel through the portals and back to Neverwinter.
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Lots of women around these parts.
Drakedge2 also does a great job of not only telling but showing his story. Something that I picked up on right away while doing the quest is that the majority of the NPCs are women. While I joked during the episode and wondered if I had wandered into Amazonia and was going to be hog tied and carried away if I would have continued to inquire with the NPCs I would have found out that most of the men in the kingdom had died during the recent war against Karameikos.
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Something tells me we aren’t in Kansas anymore.
I had the opportunity to talk to Drakegde2 after the episode and found out a little more about his inspiration for the story and some of the things I missed during my playthrough. Drakedge2 used to DM Planescape during the D&D Second edition days. He was a fan of the box sets that TSR used to produce. While I was wandering around the castle and before I spoke to the king I could have found a side quest that would have giving me more backstory to the city of Tieanen and the world of Darwinia. There are currently four chapters on the Foundry out of a planned 5 and a prologue. I give Drakedge2 a Mithril star for his work and recommend you give it a play through. It is not full of combat and is driven by the story with a few optional side conversations.
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The king gives new meaning to not being able to hold your drink.
Congratulations are in order to @Winin. He was selected by the readers to win the 1000 zen in a very close race, his A Kidnapping in Blacklake beat out Mark of the BtG by one vote!
Make sure to keep the suggestions coming to [email protected] and I look forward to seeing all of you tonight at 9:30 EDT on our MMORPG.com stream channel for our next episode of Neverwinter Foundry Focus. Thanks for watching and remember, stop and read the quest text.
Robert Lashley / Robert Lashley is a Staff Writer and Online host for MMORPG.com and RTSGuru.com. Rob's bald and when he isn't blinding people from the glare on his head talking in front of a camera you can chase him down on twitter @Grakulen
