Spring Break!

It's finally here! And you know what that means. Yes, getting drunk! While I might be doing that, I can finally get some TN work done (yay). Some other people spend their breaks doing other things, which I won't go into great detail there. Its Central Florida, you can just imagine what they do down here. The people probably reading this blog, would be working on their own mods as well.

I'd say some other things on the topic of Spring Break, like how my friend's room-mate spent his last day of college before the break, but it's not really appropriate for this blog. Let's just leave it at fraternity mischief.

I've done some bug fixing and started working on some other areas while the enthusiasm still lasts. I began working on Surague Escarpment/Sunrise Mountains, home to... many different monsters. to say the least. It's crawling with creatures free from the Red Wizard's grasp, such as gnolls, orcs, wyverns and possibly Mountain Giants (but there's not really a suitable low-intelligence looking giant model in the toolset, spare for the ogre maybe).

And a little extra information on the Sunrise Mountains, paraphrasing from the Unapproachable East Handbook (pg 155-156):

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The Sunrise Mountains, which many consider to mark the eastern end of Faerun, run all the way from the center of Rashemen to just past the south-eastern border of Thay. It forms the entirety of Thay's eastern border, towering just below 15,000ft above sea level. The mountains are teeming with dangerous animals and hostile humanoids. From time to time, scouts from the goblin and kobold tribes living here forage into Thay.

Every now again, the tharchions of Thay send an expedition into the peaks of the mountains for those sturdy and adventurous enough to take on the task. The Sunrise Mountains are said to be virtually impassable on foot, but those who know their way about the mountain can scale the cliffsides or find another path that other inhabitants of the mountains have made. Old Raumviran towers and strongholds lie buried beneath the snow of the high slopes, as well as ancient well-like fortresses of some even older people forgotten by time. Rumors have it of a hidden passage leading through the mountains into the Endless Wastes beyond, but no such cavern has been found to this date. The caverns beneath the Sunrise Mountains are filled with horrible creatures, including nagas, chimeras, and things unspeakably worse.

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I can't really pull off nagas realistically, so its not likely I'll put them in. But if someone were to make one, one could probably even use them for Mariliths or those snakes whose name escapes me at the moment. They were in BG2... But anyways, I could probably get away with using a Wyvern for Chimera.

And just to confirm, yes, you do get to travel into the snowy peaks of the mountains. The one and only snow area in the module probably.

There are several caverns lining the Surague/Sunrise areas that you can enter. Some are off to the side areas, containing loot, some monsters; others have plots inside of them. When you first approach the Surague Escarpment, you'll notice several hot springs off to the side, probably not one of those you want to go swimming in, lest your skin burn off. If any of you know about hot springs, they're usually generated from a "dormant" volcano, waiting to burst at any time. I use the term dormant loosely. It hasn't erupted in years, but might some day (i.e. Yellowstone National Park, which is where the idea actually came from: Old Faithful). Of course the Thayans aren't intelligent enough to figure that out yet.

And that concludes the intro to Surague Escarpment and the Sunrise Mountains. The rest will be disclosed in game, whenever you get there. And a few complimentary screenshots for your troubles:




And I almost forgot. I've been contemplating about adding this area (Surague Escarpment) into the contest. It's a fairly large area, 24x32, and it wouldn't include the Sunrise Mountains portion as I probably wouldn't be able to finish it that kind of time frame. This area by itself requires alot of time. Took a whole day and half with sketching out the terrain. And due to its size, this is day 2 on texturing. I should be done texturing tomorrow and all that would be left is the touch-ups. So a 5-day area I would say. Poll is off to the side in a few min from the time of this post. if you want to add another option, comment here and I'll add it.

Keep in mind, the kind of competitors there are in the contest. I don't really like stealing the show, especially when I'm not really participating for the prize (I mean its nice, but I don't really have any use for it). I also intend on allowing anyone to use TN areas as prefabs upon release of the module, so it's really only a matter of time.