Backstory for Dulvuroth is already set - I do them before I start area creation, since it's necessary to determine what the area was originally used for. Also, Dulvuroth is the name of the boss. Here's the rough draft of the builder's guide I wrote when making Dulvuroth, which covers some of the backstory:
SPOILERS
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1) Pick a level range, select monsters, determine name/theme of the area set. In most cases, you'll be given a level range, and name, and theme already. For this tutorial I'm going to use the catacombs of Dulvuroth, a mid-50s level catacomb area set now controlled by a demilich, Dulvuroth.
2) Determine how many areas will be in this area set. In most cases this will also be given to you. The main issue here is not so much area count as it is time to complete an adventure throough it, so this is subject to some flexibility - you can do fewer encounters per area, if you have a reason to want to do this - for example, the Dark Descent areas in the Pit of Moliation, used to convey a real sense of depth. The Catacombs will be 2 areas.
3) Determine the overall layout. Will the areas be above, below, or next to each other? For the Catacombs, they'll be placed under the Uroboros Temple, and will be on top of each other, roughly. This includes links to other areas. In this case, we want Duvaroth to be completable as a stand-alone area, separate from the Uro run. To that end, we'll want a portal in it linking it to the tower in the Frozen Wastes docks, and will have to make a small area for the tower, and edit the docks area to make a way to the tower.
4) Select the tileset or sets you want to use. Sometimes a suggested tileset will already be set out for you, but these are also flexible. I often try out a few to see which has the look that closest fits what I want. In this case, I went with keep interior, partly because it's new and unused thus far, and partly because it has a delapidated look that I like.
5) Work out what the area was used for, if the original inhabitants are no longer there, and what it is currently used for, if anything, This includes any creatures that may inhabit or pass through it. At this point, you may want to do a little research, depending on the area. You need to know the background lore of the primary inhabitants, at a minimum. For the Catacombs, that means a general familiarity with undead, and reading the source material for demiliches, at a minimum.
I also did some reading on catacombs, to look at designs, and see what all they were used for. As it turns out, they're often used as safe havens in times of seige, or for other military puroposes, as well as for interrment. I looked at a map of the catacombs under Paris, as well, to get a feel for them. I then decided that these catacombs, as well as serving for the burial needs of the temple above, also once served as a stronghold for the unspecified civilization who built the tower in the docks. Seeing the giant mythallar feature in the keep tileset, and deciding I want to use it, I decide that the temple above was built above a source of magical power they detetcted, and eventually the builders dug down and discovered a wellspring of magic, which they harnessed in the mythallar. A barracks was built to defend the mythallar while it was constructed, and the magic studied and put to use. The temple was once connected to a network of outposts and cities in this ancient northern civilization, but now only the link to the tower remains. The civilization itself has vanished, for reasons unspecified, and at some later point Dulvuroth took up residence, seeking to study the mythallar and put it to use in his magical studies, and sealing it off from the temple above, to prevent others from interfering with his research.
So, what does all that do for us? Well, it tells us that the area nearest the entry from the temple should have rock debris left over from the explosion the players use to open it initially, or from Dulvuroth's sealing (players, once they visit, will be able to port directly to and from the tower and these catacombs, but will have to open them from the temple above initially, using the powder kegs found in the Uro gem mines). It also tells us that there should be some tombs there, once used by the temple above, as well as a prepartion chamber and an altar area, used during interrment. We won't want the players to be able to skip too much by porting in from the tower, though, so the portal will have to be close to the entrace also. Branching off from it will be both the military garrison and the catacombs. On the first layer, I decide just to put a guard chamber, to keep an eye on the portal room, along with bunks for those on rotating duty, and a gong to alert those below. Of course, all this will be smashed, decayed, or just gone, as the ages have taken their toll.
On the layer below, we'll include the essentials for a garrison, including a jail, for housing prisoners picked up by patrols from the tower and other areas, a barracks, a privvy, a smith, for keeping the men supplied with weapons, a mess, a meeting room, and a temple, a lab for studying the mythallar, and the mythallar itself.
It is NOT critical that players be able to tell all this from looking at your area. It's simply to give you some idea how to connect and decorate the various parts of the area, and contributes to much more realistic looking areas.
6) Figure out what will make the area unique. Remember that many of the tilesets we have have been used many times before, and even the new ones will probably see use again. We want our area to look distinct from those other areas, and to look like it all fits together. This often includes area lighting, tile lighting, fog, sylistic choices of tile use, placeable selection, and more. In this case, we'll have a number of collapsed/collapsing walls to indicate the delapidated nature of the catacombs. Also, the builders of these catacombs will favor flattened room corners, rather than the pointed ones, and will make only very limited use of the diagonals available in the keep tileset. The mythallar will probably be a dominantly unique feature, since the boss fight seems like it should occur there - it's his reason for being there, after all. Maybe we could have him use it in combat, shooting beams ala the eye of vecna in beholders. We'll want the colors of the first level to mesh a bit with the area above, so that the transition isn't too jarring - a white fog, with a medium amount (15), will accomplish that, with tile lighting set to black and dark blue. Area light will be black, since these are, after all, catacombs, and there's no magical source of light, other than the mythallar. I'll make sure to turn off the source lights, since this area isn't inhabited by anything that needs light (other than the demilich, for his studies), just undead. Likewise, I'll turn off the fire in the smithy area. On the second layer, we'll go with a slightly redder cast to the fog, since the colors coming off the mythallar are predominatly reddish. And, in the lab near the mythallar, we'll use red and purple tile lights, to show the 'radiatoin' coming from the mythallar. Also, the demilich will need light to read, but won't want to bother with real torches, since he'd have to resupply - he'll use magical light instead, so the source lighting will be red (for some reason bad guys' light spells come out read, ask Xykon why). Most of our placesables are going to be in a state of decay, disrepair, and disarray, obviously, and we already know what kinds of places we'll need based on the areas - altars and basins and statues for the altar areas, coffins/sarcophagi for the tomb areas, chains for the jail - and maybe an execution device, broken beds int he barracks, and so on. We'll be able to get away with fewer places than in an actively inhabited area, though there will be more debris, of course. To reflect the twisting nature of catacombs (though this is usually because of being built up by many different hands over time), I'll have the passage to the mythallar go back up to the level above, place the lab there, and have it go back down the mythallar, lending the area more of a unique layout.
7) Figure out the flow control of the area. As you are setting out the various areas you've decided on, you'll need to ensure that the party has to cover most of the area in order to advance - if you don't, parties will simply wind up skipping the non-required sections (remember, this is a min-max action server). If you don't put things in a straight line, which would be both boring and unrealistic, then you need to put either loot or passkeys of some sort at the ends of the diversionary routes, as incentives to go there. In this case, we'll have a series of gates blocking off the garrison from the portal room and the catacombs. A priest will have a copy of the key to the gates - either an undead corpse, or just a skeleton placeable, in the altar area, which we'll place at the end of the tomb area.
On the second level, I managed to work the layout so that trigger placement can force entry to most areas (if they try to skip, they'll get hit by multiple spawn triggers at once, spawning in the 'skipped' areas), and loot containers. We can also place a secret in an usused corner, if we need to - otherwise we can put it someplace so obvious they won't look there. Having the ascent/descent to the mythallar boss fight will serve as a natural boundary, assuring that players can't use area design to make the boss too easy. By now, I have a fair idea of where players will have to go in the area, and therefore where the triggers will be located, roughly - this is a key component of flow control, but I'll place placeables before I set them down, because the spawn points will look more natural when positioned in the final area - takign account of placeables we may put there.
8) Contemplate 'gimmicks' in the area. In the pit, for example, we had the torturees, which also advanced a useful purpose - making good/evil alignment change a little more easy, and more play-oriented. Here, most of the inhabitants aren't actively interacting with the enviroment, so traps seem like a natural choice. Perhaps the old defenses of the garrison are still in place, or Dulvuroth reactivated some. We'll put some kind of trap in between the gates by the portal room, and a few more on the way to the mythallar - maybe statues that fire beams. Making these traps pesky, dangerous, or even deadly, will give cause to bring a rogue along.
9) Set down your placeables. By now, this shouldn't be too tricky. You know what the subareas in your area set used to be used for, and what they're being used for now, and how they relate to other subareas in your area set. Run down smithy? Barrel for quenching, some leftover weapons in the storeroom in the back, a cold forge, some pliers and a hammer, and a few miscellaneous decorations, alond with some debris, broken furniture, cobwebs, etc. Barracks? Busted beds. And so on. Avoid placing anything a player can't walk over over the red tile markers, IF they are someplace a monster or player might run into them (remember, you have a fair idea where your triggers (and by extension, your spawn points) are located, by now). I also place doors at this point, with the following steps:
rename as appropriate, set to plot, remove death script, remove comment, change open/set status as needed. Traps and locks come later, in the scripting stage, since our keys run off the same script.
As far as the garrison goes, it's going to look fairly empty, which is fine, so long as we supply some interesting features along the way. Perhaps a few statues that shoot traps, with a warning skeleton by one. The gas trap by the entry gates, too. Lots of metal will have survived in the smithy, too, and perhaps some stone or metal loot containers, though those get added later. Still, that sounds a little sparse, so, we'll need to toss in some more backstory. Turns out the Dulvuroth, when he came to investigate the power source (which we'll assume was long before the lich in the temple above arrived to do the same), ran into the remnants of the garrison, sworn to protect it even in death. At first he simply rampaged through, seeking out the power source he sensed nearby, and later he raised what remains he could scavange as his servants and guardians. So, we can throw in some busted up brick, metal doors, and maybe even wooden doors, if we assume they were given some kind of hardening treatment, along with the wooden pillars that unfortunately come with the tileset. Also a few stray bones, scorch marks, and weapons, on the route between his entry, which could either by the stairs the players have to blast, or the portal they'll have access to once they defeat him (so the run can be done as a standalone).
You should try to select a few 'theme' placeables to tie together the area set with a coherent look. Maybe the inhabitants favor stone furniture, and certain banners, or use a particular spell to light their areas (one of the light vfx placeables). For the catacombs, since this is related to a religious order, they'll probably have one or two statues placed in prominent places, of a similar or identical appearance. Perhaps some webs, too, or a particular type of sarcophagus in the tomb area. Most of the original wood would probably not have survived the ravages of time, so I'll only have wooden stuff the demilich might've had brought in for his purposes. That means most placeables I use will be stone or metal, not wood. We'll make an exception for the lab, which he'll be actively using. For what, though, what is he doing, specifically, in his study of the mythallar? Maybe he's trying to replicate it, by building a smaller one, in the lab. That will allow us to use some spiffy visual effects. Those are nice, because there aren't many of them in the mod, making them make an area look very unique when used. So, a quick tutorial on placing visual effects is in order.
9a) Place visual effects if any. We have a very convenient setup for putting down visual effects in the HG Builder's Mod, so that no scripting is required of the builder. In the Custom placeable palette, under Special/Custom1, you'll find the _VFX Startup Object placeable. It's invisible, and doesn't block players from walking through it, so you can put them anywhere. Once you've placed the object, all you have to do is edit its properties (of the copy you placed, not the palette version). You do this by right clicking on it, and clicking on Properties. You want to change the variables on it, so you'll click on the Advanced tab, and click the Variables ... button near the bottom. Here, you see 4 variables, all set to 0. Appearance is the appearance number if the placeable you want it to look like. If you set this, instead of being invisible, the object will change (only once the mod loads and is running) to the new appearance, and may no longer be able to be walked through freely. I'll explain how to get these appearance numbers in a moment. Next is VFX_Dur_1. If you want the visual effect to have a duration type vfx applied to it, you enter the visual effect number for the value. You can apply more than one duration vfx, as many as you like, by adding a new variable with an incremeted number in the name - VFX_Dur_2, VFX_Dur_3, and so on. Again, I'll explain how to find the visual effects numbers in a moment. The next two variables, VFX_Loop and VFX_Loop_Cycle, are used together. If the vfx you want to apply is not a duration-type vfx, you can still apply it, and the loop_cycle will tell the engine how often to reapply that effect. The way we set this up is not TOO burdonsome on the engine, but you should use looping vfx sparingly. If, for example, I wanted an electrical explosion to fire every 3.5 seconds, I would set VFX_Loop's value to the vfx number, for example, 459, and then sert VFX_Loop_Cycle to 3.5.
To find the numbers needed, you need to look in the relevant 2da. One simple way to do this is to view them in NWN Explorer, which you can download here:
nwvault.ign.com/View.php?view=Other.Detail&id=1369One you've installed and opened it, click on the '+' next to NWN HAK Files to expand it, then on the '+' next to cep2_custom.hak, near the bottom of the haks listed. This is the hak where we store our customized files, including the vfx 2da. Expand Game Data, then double click on visualeffects.2da. You can view all the available visual effects you can use here - the number at the very left is the row number, which is the number you set variables to when editing the vfx placable. Just to the right is the constant name, which should give you a rough idea what each vfx is, and what type it is. Vfx with DUR in the name are duration vfx, used with the VFX_Dur_ variable. Any other vfx, you'll have to use the VFX_Loop variables for, and specify how often you want it to fire. If you want to preview vfx ingame, you can do so easily, with the dm_vfx command. Just enter the number of the vfx and then the number of seconds you want it to last (duration only if a duration type). For example, if I want to apply a ghostly visage visual for 43 seconds, I would enter dm_vfx 9 43, and then target either myself or whatever I want to see the effect on.
For placeable appearance numbers for the Appearance variable, you'll need a different 2da in a different hak. Unexpand Game Data and cep2_custom.hak, and expand the current cep top hak (there's a new one for each version of cep, the current is cep2_top_v22.hak). Now expand Game Data, and then placeables.2da. Again, the leftmost row is the row number, the number you set the variable to. In most cases, you don't have to, and often won't want to set Appearance to anything, instead leaving the vfx object invisible. It's only when you need to apply a vfx to a visible object, not just at it's location, that you'll want to change Appearance. This is handy for making things glow, for example. Take a look at the bat statue in the Great Cavern for an example.
Getting back to the current area set, the catacombs, I'm going to use some vfx to help dress up the copy of the mythallar the demilich is trying to make. Using a red floating crystal from Dungeon Dressing and a couple of magic sparks for the basic appearance, I'm going to add a vfx placeable to really dress things up. I place the _VFX Startup Object at the same coordinates as the crystal, right clicking on it and Adjusting Location to get it in exactly the right place. I then right click on it and select Variables. I'll Delete the Appearance variable since I don't need it. I'll then Replace the 0 value of VFX_Dur_1 with 1830, to make a nice HGVFX_DUR_UNHOLY_WARD effect. And to complete the effect, I'll replace the 1 in VFX_Dur_1 with a 1, change the value to 1886, and Add it to make a second duration effect. I'll delete the VFX_Loop variables, since I don't need them.
I'm omitting the section explaining how to set down encounter triggers and waypoints, since it's a bit involved, but you can always ask me if you want to try your hand at it.
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Funky