N is for Neverwinter and Northrend

         (My A-Z Blog Challenge theme this year is Mythical and Imaginary Places.)

        Neverwinter is a major city on the Sword Coast of Faerûn, the primary setting of the Dungeons & Dragons world of Forgotten Realms (and setting of an eponymous video game).  It is a cosmopolitan and civilized city of skilled craftspeople, famed for its beautiful buildings, magnificent gardens, and emblematic bridges — until the city was destroyed in a volcanic eruption.

        Northrend is a continent in the north of the world Azeroth, setting of the on-line multiplayer computer game World of Warcraft.  Since it lies so far north, the geography of its ten zones ranges from steppes and fjords to frozen wasteland (plus one thermally heated tropical basin).  Over time it has been the home of titans, trolls, vrykul, tuskarr, dragons, and undead, among others, and is best known as the seat of the dreaded Lich King.

        I use these two places (somewhat arbitrarily picked and assigned to the letter N) as representatives of fantasy worlds created to be the settings of role-playing games, both tabletop and computer-based.  D&D and video games both appeared on the popular scene around 45 years ago, in the early 1970’s.  They represented a new way to explore and experience fantasy realms, in which players were to create their own stories as they made their own choices about where to go and what to do.  (If you want to know more, there are several A to Z Bloggers writing about D&D and gaming topics this year.  You can look for them in the Master List.)

        Computer games especially have come a long way since Pong or Space Invaders.  Early games had little to no world-creation, but that began to change with games such as The Legend of Zelda in 1986, which made use of a certain amount of plot, and eventually back-story.  Through all the changes in technology, gaming platforms, and proliferation of game genres, there are games that revolve around following quest lines that reveal a story, and that type of game is often built on an astonishing depth and breadth of world creation.  World of Warcraft has had, in addition to the stories uncovered while playing the various games set in that world, a series of books and a movie, and all of these are rooted in a vast mythology and geography.  D&D’s world, too, has spawned novels, movies, and even an animated television series.

        Imaginary worlds conceived as settings for games do have some interesting differences from worlds imagined for books or movies, however.  For one thing, an author writing a book doesn’t really have to invent anything that won’t show up in the book (despite the example of Middle-earth).  A game that allows players to explore under their own steam, on the other hand, will require the entire area to be mapped out and/or depicted.  Games like World of Warcraft may not give players total free will in terms of story line, but both they and D&D allow players to explore anywhere they want to go, so they can’t have blank areas in the map.

        Secondly, worlds created for open-ended gameplay can’t have a beginning middle and end… at least, they can’t have an end if the game franchise is to continue!  So some games have a very static setting in which you can continue to play over and over for all eternity on a single set stage, while there are other games in which the world is completely different every time, depending on what a player chooses to do, so that it has no consistent borders at all.  D&D provides players with a “present day” map, and all manner of history explaining how it’s reached the point where it now rests, ready for you to explore.  World of Warcraft has several times introduced massive changes to its world to give it a sense of progressing history.

        Of course, for an ongoing game, the more things change, the more they stay the same — conflicts can never be entirely resolved, villains can never truly be defeated, and every quest has to be greater than the one before.  My personal pet peeve about the World of Warcraft is that it sometimes seems there isn’t a single character in the mythology who doesn’t go insane and turn evil at least once.  Of course, we’re not here to talk about the characters, but the places.  Well, a lot of the places in that world, too, essentially go insane and turn evil, including parts of Northrend infected by a hideous plague — but nevertheless, the variety and scope of the world is amazing.  (You can see a previous post about World of Warcraft here, wherein I mention some of my favorite zones at the time, including my favorite N zone: Nagrand.)

        Why bother building these worlds for a mere game?  What does it tell us that such worlds are important to us?  They reveal the importance of story.  Hunting for 15 basilisk scales may be an interesting entertainment, but it’s so much more engaging if we have a reason for needing those scales… and that reason is more compelling when it’s tied to a story…  And the story is more immersive when it’s set in a beautiful, detailed world.

        The MORAL of Neverwinter and Northrend: It’s always more fun to travel when the scenery is good.

              OR:  Ponder the limits of free will with your favorite role-playing game.

        So, what are your favorite games, computer or tabletop?  Or out on the field, court, or rink?

[Pictures: Map of Neverwinter;

View of Neverwinter from the harbor;

Neverwinter in the afternoon;

The Protector’s Enclave district of Neverwinter, unfortunately I can’t find any information about the artists, designers, or original sources for these images, but the computer game is by Arc Games, released 2013 (Images from Forgotten Realms Fandom here and here);

Map of Northrend;

Howling Fjord zone of Northrend, screen shot, 2018 (Image from WoWHead);

Icecrown Citadel in Northrend, login screen art, 2005 (Image from WoWHead);

Sholazar Basin zone of Northrend, screen shot, 2008 (Image from WoWHead), all screen shots from World of Warcraft computer game by Blizzard Entertainment, Northrend expansion released 2008.]