A Thirst for Blood: Exploring the Land of Argyle
1. Argyle Online Celebrates its Fourth Year!
Argyle Online (AO) celebrates its Fourth Anniversary this year!! With its unique and lush background lore, gorgeous and detailed areas, a talented and dedicated group of volunteer DMs, and a friendly community of fantastic role-players, it’s no wonder that Argyle Online is one of Neverwinter Nights’ premiere persistent worlds.
Launched in June 2002, Argyle Online is arguably the first Neverwinter Nights persistent world and has been active ever since. Initially created as a role-players’ campaign environment strictly for DM led campaigns, it has grown into persistent world focused heavily on role-playing, where players can live out their characters’ stories and where DMs continue to lead unforgettable campaigns and quests. The server features a unique and exciting role-playing experience based on Silver Oak Studios’ Land of Argyle campaign setting and employs core SRD 3.5 rules. With over 500 registered members on its forums, Argyle Online is a community that embraces new players and encourages excellence in role-playing, storytelling and, above all, fun.
As part of its four year anniversary celebrations, Argyle Online invites players, new and old, to explore the Land of Argyle. Anyone whose thirst for adventure in a history rich, quality role-playing and exciting persistent world need look no further. But lone adventurers beware on your journeys, for heroes and villains are not the only ones with a thirst for blood.
2. The Big Kid on the Block: A Sneak Peek at the New Server Plot
Generally speaking, the people of Unidan have had it pretty good. Sure, the city’s guards are uniformly corrupt, the merchants are greedy, crime is rampant, and the dangers of the Burnt Range loom to the west. Still, they have a city council that is at least mildly responsive to their needs, protects trade, and has managed to keep Unidan somewhat free of regional rivalries.
Unidan’s good fortune may be coming to an end. For decades now, the powerful city of Soberdan had been relatively quiet. Indeed, Soberdan had been tearing itself apart with crime, assassination, corruption, and struggles for control. The militia’s outposts were abandoned, patrols ground to a halt, and the forced conscription of young men from neighboring villages and towns dropped off.
Few in Greater Argyle lamented Soberdan’s plight. When Soberdan has been able to look beyond its walls, tensions rise and battles are fought. The word in Unidan is that a man called Vaerik Nashe has come to power in Soberdan. If the merchants and travelers are correct, Vaerik has brought order to the city, and he now intends to exert Soberdan’s great strength and influence. Soberdan’s militias are once again patrolling. For some, this is a great cause for concern, while others welcome the presence of uniformed soldiers on the roads, even if they are commanded by the much feared Mannis Thanyl.
Unidan stands divided. There are those who would favor a strengthened Soberdan, proclaiming that it represents the area’s only hope against the tribes of the Burnt Range and the Elf Witches of the Firelight Forest. Are there visions of renewed empire in these claims? Merchants welcome stability, but they do not know what an emboldened Soberdan would mean for taxes and bribes. The descendants of Heedrun carefully guard their brave ancestor’s legacy of an autonomous Unidan. Argon, Arberdan, and the Firelight are sending their spies south.
Who is this man who now lords over Soberdan? What are his plans? Can he stir the Humans to greatness once more, or is he but another in a long line of Southern tyrants?
What will become of Unidan? Will it once more acknowledge Soberdan’s primacy, or will it seek to hold onto its brief period of independence?
3. The Shadowed Highway: A Campaign for New Players!
The trip to Arberdan was easy for the adventurers hired to guard the merchant caravan. Will the ride home be just as safe? Will the hushed whispers heard in taverns of raiding goblin bands reveal themselves as truths? And what is the young merchant hiding in his wagon, obscuring it at all times?
Join the adventure in The Shadowed Highway on Mondays at 11GMT. Fresh, new characters are required for the campaign and are considered “off the PW” until it is finished. Ascended Garrett is DMing the campaign. He hopes to imbue a familiarity with the Lore and History of Argyle, as well as start new players’ characters off with some extra experience. Come explore the Land of Argyle, where the land is a rough, gritty place and the shadows often hold more then just the dark.
4. Elril’s Argyle Online Retrospect
As with warm chocolate chip pancakes and sweet April showers, I have nothing but fond memories of Argyle Online and its friendly community. I can’t imagine tearing myself away from the cozy feelings I receive each time I log onto its game-server, even after being an active player for more than three years. In that time, I’ve had the pleasure of meeting many wonderful people through AO’s message board it being so active with new visitors popping in now and then. It’s as if all the core-gamers out there in NwN Land are slowly realizing what a great place this persistent world has become and are steadily flocking toward us to see what we’re all about. And of course, we are always happy to show them what we’ve got.
If I had to name one aspect of Argyle Online that has kept my interest for so long, I would name its tightly knit band of players, DMs, and Ascended (Argyle staff members). Foremost, we are a family dedicated to having fun and keeping the traditional values of Argyle pure. On no other NwN server have I found a group so dedicated to improving their world, and I suspect that I never will. Now, as epic stories are beginning to surface in AO, I look forward to weaving my character’s own way into Argyle history, and hope that others might join in to do the same. There will be plenty of glory to go around.
5. The Meeting Place
Meet some of the characters of Argyle Online!
Sir Darent Dravenmoore
(Played by Elril)
Beneath the eaves of Unidan, around every street corner and through every back-alley, tensions are beginning to stir. Amidst the brooding, Sir Darent Dravenmoore, a Knight of the Black Rose, contemplates how he will rouse this town to life, to have its people marching at his heel to the trumpets of war.
Accompanying the Lady Daenerys on a quest for total sovereignty, Darent has arrived in Unidan with hopes of crippling the small city into submission. Being a Knight grown up with the Order of the Black Rose, he is well versed in imposing respect and inflicting chaos. He currently seeks the Star of Twilight, an ancient artifact though to possess immeasurable power. With the Star, he hopes to accomplish Universal Kingship over all of Argyle. But as the seasons turn, so does heart as love begins to pull him away from the dark path. How this will further his worldly struggles, only time may tell.
Gothnak
(Played by BattleFurby)
Gothnak, a half-orc, was raised in a secluded hamlet where he was sheltered from the outside world and brought up under the guidance and teachings of Andazagon, an eccentric and kind gnome. While his studies there with Andazagon took him down many paths, it was Gothnak’s love for that of nature that eventually led him to become the Ranger he is today. Within the hamlet, life was carefree and happy. Things, since then, have changed. Tragedy struck the hamlet and he was forced to venture out into the real world, where he now faces a harrowing culture shock and a startling realization of how it is that he, a half orc, came to be. Gothnak also must come to grips with racial tensions he never knew existed – or perish. Once an outgoing and boisterous youth, the real world has transformed him into a seldom spoken individual with a cautious side bordering on cynical. He wonders, often, how much more this new, cruel world will change him; and if he will survive the process.
Nemien Callishan
(Played by Balgin Stondraeg)
An inquisitive mind is both a gift and a curse. Few know this better than Nemien. Ever the eternal student she struggles to keep her prying mind from invading the precious privacy of others whose secrets should not be disturbed.
Brodian
(Played by Garrett)
Hailing from the northern city of Shroudgard, where undead roam and raid, and every young man is drafted into the army at an early age, Brodian is a rugged and gritty tracker. Not many, if any, can match his skills with the bow and his talent at reading tracks like a scribe would a parchment.
A constant battle between light and darkness wages within Brodian’s mind, as he tries to protect his adopted sister, the innocent and mischievous Mylin, and at the same time appease the noblewoman Harmony, the skilled seductress.
Come Explore the Land of Argyle!
Visit us at http://www.lonerhino.com/argyle/ruminations
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