World of Karador is very different from the average NWN
server. Most builders look at a world as a place where a lone city or two are surrounded by dungeons that seem to have no real significance. Karador focuses first on the kingdom of Lomar. It is a virtual kingdom comprised of several large interconnected cities, each supported by several small towns and communities. Lomar's borders are well defended and her roads patrolled. Within the kingdom, there is relative safety where all manner of character may go about their lives. Many different exclusive guilds exist where characters may pursue their professions and interests. Outside of the fortress protected kingdom however, all manner of danger awaits. A hostile wilderness surrounds the kingdom on every side. Countless monsters have dwellings and even civilizations of their own. Truly random monsters roam the country side searching for prey. There is plenty of danger to be found when the road you have walked a hundred times might always have an unexpected surprise awaiting upon it.
CEP 2.4: Karador is a
CEP world. If you do not have CEP, what are you waiting for? We also intend to implement the Community Tileset Pack when it becomes available.
PRC 3.5: The World of Karador has recently switch to the
PRC. Many of the wonderful options are being implemented, with many more to come.
Pen and Paper Conversions: Karador has over a dozen classic pen and paper modules that have been converted to NWN. The List of conversions done include: B4 The Lost City, B2 The Keep on the Borderlands, B5 Horror on the Hill, B11 King's Festival, B12 Queen's Harvest, FRC1 Ruins of Adventure, G1 Steading of the Hill Giant Chief, G2 Glacial Rift of the Frost Giant Jarl, G3 Hall of the Fire Giant King, L3 Deep Dwarven Delve, R1 To the Aid of Falx, S4 Lost Caverns of Tsojcanth, 9350 Assault on Raven's Ruin. With many more to come!.
Setting: Karador is its own world filled with unique places,
NPCs, organizations, kingdoms and guilds. Most players are very impressed with the depth of background that exists and love to learn the new plots which are unfolding behind the scenes. Most game play focuses around the Kingdom of Lomar and its struggles in a hostile fantasy world.
Environment: Karador is a beautiful world. Characters can see much farther into the horizon than in most worlds, and wildlife is abundant. Trees, animals, and smaller plants give the constant impression of a living world. Among the effects most players are most impressed with is the darkness of night which is very pronounced in Karador. When dawn finally comes, most players take a deep breath of relief.
Size: Karador is very large. The primary kingdom setting of Lomar consists of 4 cities, 5 forts and a dozen smaller towns, villages and guilds. Most new players are bewildered at how big the kingdom is and how much there is to do inside of it once they start looking around. New players will find that monsters do not lurk only moments from the inn. There is a quite expansive kingdom which is relatively peaceful in which characters can travel around and explore. Outside of the kingdom is much larger and far less safe.
Spawns: Karador uses a very dynamic random spawn system. First of all, random spawns are in no way scaled by the level of the character triggering them. The world exists as it does regardless of the level of the player. Players need to be ever vigilant that an encounter far beyond their ability may lurk around every corner. Secondly, random groups can be as large as 25 members and consist of likely creatures that would be encountered together in a manner that makes sense. These random groups are truly random. You will constantly find different groups in different places. Though many areas have many encounters you can expect, you never know when a small
orc army might be on the move, or a group or slavers camp as they move across the wilds.
Monster difficulty: Monsters in Karador are harder than in most places. This has not been done by adding
hit points,
armor class or higher stats. Instead the monsters have some great
AI scripting. They use spells and ranged combat better. Thieves, scouts and hunters use their
hide skill and sneak up on players. Monsters see farther away and call for aid to their fellows more effectively. All of these things make for more challenging adventuring without the need to buff up creatures.
XP & loot: Karador is a "low power" server. Both
experience points and gold are hard won. We have built a world that does not require a level 20 character to travel to the best places. Low level characters, particularly in organized cooperative groups, will find themselves able to enjoy most of the world. There is a small xp bonus for exploring the world, which can be helpful to starting characters.
Drops: Karador creatures are known for dropping the items they should. Monsters wearing armor and wielding two swords will drop all of those things. Nearly every monster drops something that can be used, and always something that makes sense.
Rest: Server rest limitations reduce how often players can sleep. Characters are limited to
resting in only every 8 game
hours, and require food and drink to do so. Players can only sleep in special areas like inns and camp sites.
Rangers,
druids and
barbarians can rest in most wilderness areas with the proper gear. Resting only recuperates twice the character's level, plus their
constitution bonus, per rest. This makes healers (magic and otherwise) much more valuable.
Healing: We have eliminated the standard
healer's kits used in NWN. New healing items such as bandages, herbal poultices, tourniquets, trauma kits, disease remedy bags, surgery tools and toxin treatment kits have been included. Treatment effectiveness is determined by the healer's skill, and all of these healing items can be player-crafted with things found in the world. Players are also limited as to how frequently they can receive non-magical healing in a day between rest.
Unconsciousness: Like most servers, we have a decent system that makes players unconscious with hit points (HP) between 0 and -10. Unconscious characters bleed 1 HP per turn, and have a fair chance to recover. Most times monsters will cease attacking a character who has fallen.
PVP: Officially our world is set for full player vs. player. I do not want people to be mislead by this into thinking that we encourage fighting between players. We want to develop a world where players are generally cooperative, friendly and well intentioned towards each other. The world is set to "Full PvP" because we want more realistic and true to
pen and paper representation of area of effect spells, traps, etc.
Disease: In keeping with the theme of a difficult and somewhat "realistic" fantasy world, plague sweeps the land. Characters risk infection with vile diseases at every turn. It adds flavor, worry and the excitement that comes from the unexpected.
Curses: Karador has a unique system developed by which characters can become
cursed. Curses are for more then temporary attribute reduction. Curses last until removed and can be everything for narcolepsy to the dreaded curse of the four winds which periodically sweeps the victim up and deposits him at strange locations.
Development: Karador is constantly being developed and expanded. The designer is constantly adding new material, and player suggestions are taken very seriously. If you want to try a world where you will see new things added every week, give Karador a try.
Crafting: Karador has the standard NWN and CEP crafting systems implemented. In addition, Karador has it own custom systems for crafting everything from poisons, traps, potions, ammunition, food and healing items.
Secrets: The world of Karador has lots of secrets that players will have to work hard to uncover and discover. Players who have been here for a year still occasionally uncover things they had never known before.
Persistence Karador has a persistent banking, investment and message board system. We also have scripting that keeps persistence of player hit points and spell usage even across server resets.
Map room: Among the greatest resources that we have provided for our players is the map room. The map room shows a detailed depiction of all parts of the kingdom and much of the surrounding area. Each area is well described such that players can research where they want their travels to take them.
Friendly DMs: The
DMs on Karador very much want to promote players adopting the server as their home. They see it as their job to help facilitate an enjoyable experience for the players.
classic areas: Recently a movement has begun to build adaptations of older classic AD&D modules into the world of Karador. Currently you can find the The List of conversions done include: B4 The Lost City, B2 The Keep on the Borderlands, B5 Horror on the Hill, B11 King's Festival, B12 Queen's Harvest, FRC1 Ruins of Adventure, G1 Steading of the Hill Giant Chief, G2 Glacial Rift of the Frost Giant Jarl, G3 Hall of the Fire Giant King, L3 Deep Dwarven Delve, R1 To the Aid of Falx, S4 Lost Caverns of Tsojcanth, 9350 Assault on Raven's Ruin. With many more to come! More will surely come.
Gameplay information
Character names
Character names must be historical, generic or fantasy genre appropriate. European names are most favored, but by no means required. Names of well known characters from literature, television, movies will not be allowed. Defamatory names will not be allowed. Not because I'm a politically correct ****, but because their out of genre. Names may include titles which are reasonable for a characters class. "sir", "brother", and "prior". More grand titles such as "lord", "king", "cardinal", "governor" "sheriff" or "judge" are prohibited unless you have specific Game Master instruction to use such.
Player vs. player
The PvP setting of this mod is set to on. This is not intended to promote player vs. player conflict. I strongly encourage players to work cooperatively. The primary reason for the PvP setting is for spell effects being more realistic and similar to paper and pencil AD&D. "Grief killing", or killing of others for your own wants is not permitted. Grief killing or other murder for fun and profit will result in kick / ban. Killing / fighting of other players is only legal in 3 situations. 1) A "warrant" exists for the player in question. Warrants may be issued by players or NPCs who have law enforcement powers and titles such as "sheriff" and "judge". Warrants will be issued against players who establish a track record and history of theft and murder (murder of NPCs and theft from either PCs or NPCs... Murder of PCs results in kick / ban) and other in character unlawfulness. 2) A formal duel is agreed to by all parties involved and the fight takes place with the consent of all parties. 3) As a part of a "war". Wars occasionally break out between game factions. These wars are begun, moderated and ended by Game Masters only. Wars are basically adventures that Game Masters will occasionally run where players will be allowed to take up sides and fight players of the opposing side as part of campaign plot. Like duels, participation in wars will almost always be 100% voluntary.
Time
Time on this world server is closer to real time then most other servers or modules. In many NWN modules, 2 minutes of real time make for 1 hour of game time. Here we use a schedule of 3 real minutes per in game hour. Thus a day for characters on this server is about an hour and ten miniutes real time. Characters are only able to rest every 8 hours. These are 8 in game hours. This is about a 24 minutes in real time. Spell casters with only a small allotment of spells per day must be far more careful in there selection and use. Resting is also not the healing method of choice on this server.
Travel and safety
The module is very large. The module is not "The Legend of Zelda" or other such computer games where you have to grow in level and power to move further on into more dangerous areas of the game in a sort of linear way. Adventure areas are spotted all over the place. Small dangers are frequent, great evils generally must be sought out. The world at large is basically safe. Thousands of peasants make a living farming in the civilized parts of the kingdom, and moving from town to town along major roads in civilized areas has only minor risk. That is not to say that the occasional raider may not decide to sack a local farm for supplies and stumble across you in the process. Many areas as basically civilized and in them, get out and about, but keep your wits about you. Areas that don't show signs of civilization are another matter. Only the brave and foolish scout them blind. There are lots of hints about places. There will always be information available about places if you bother looking. If you see a place that catches your interest. Talk to local peasants or look for books in libraries. Better yet, Ask other adventures and travelers. May the roads be kind.
Rest
Rest in the world of Karador is a very serious issue. It governs so many important elements of the game, that its settings will greatly impact nearly every element of how the game progresses. In Karador, rest is greatly limited to add a flavor of realism and difficulty. Rest conventions for the World of Karador are as follows. Rest is only allowed every 8 game hours. 1 game hour is 3 real minutes. Thus rest is allowed every 24 minutes. Rest requires both food and drink, and consumes them as part of that rest. Rest is allowed only in special areas. When you enter them, you will receive a message informing you of such. NPCs are a good source to learn rest locations, though many are obvious ( like inns). Resting only heals a character a limited amount of HPs. That amount is the character's level X 2 plus CON bonus.
Rest is not the great solution to healing it is traditional NWN. Most rest settings in NWN worlds make clerics useless. Furthermore, resting on demand takes most challenge from the game. It is not uncommon to see players fight, take 30 seconds to rest, get all spells and HPs back, just to charge the next encounter. Conservation, care, tactics, strategy and teamwork are a must. You can not simply rest yourself back to full power at any small break in the action. This has a ramification on spell casters by limiting their access to magic. It also limits warriors by restricting their ability to recover HPs. Both will find other elements that balance and contribute to game enjoyment as play progresses. This server has been established for the enjoyment of people looking for a difficult, challenging experience similar to that of traditional paper and pencil game.
Monster spawnsThere are three general types of monster spawns you will find on this server. First - "Prime Spawns"- These creatures / NPCs don't actually spawn at all. They are placed in the module and are there from the moment the server goes up. Most of these spawns are NPCs, and if killed, won't re-appear. There are also some powerful rare monsters which are unique and wont simply keep reincarnating. Don't worry there scarcity will only make them all the more impressive if your ever unfortunate enough to encounter them. And.. Your more likely to say " thank God the Lord of the Pit isn't here now" rather than.. "Now where has that Lord of the Pit gotten off to". Second - " Standard Spawns"- These creatures represent creatures in areas infested with there ilk. Kill them off and soon more will move back in. These are likely the creatures that players will see most. Spawns of this kind appear far off from trigger locations or aren't trigger activated at all. Monsters will not mysteriously appear around you. They also tend to wander a bit which populates zones nicely. Also unlike other servers, "Standard Spawns" repopulate relatively slowly. They take a long time to re appear. Nothing worse than slaughtering a tribe of goblins only to have them back when you wake up from a nap. This is to simulate that areas which are cleaned tend to stay safe for some time and to promote PCs exploring new fantastic places rather than fighting the same spawn over and over in a Valhalla like eternal struggle. Third - "Random Spawns" - The World often populate areas with random creatures periodically appearing in random locations. These random spawns will generally pop in a zone far away from PCs... and roam around doing there own thing until they and PCs meet. Though these random spawns will never grossly out of place, there's always the chance to bump into the unexpected. Here is a very important point about my opinions on monster spawns. Spawns do not modify themselves at all based on level of the PCs. There treasure does not changes based on level of PCs or how many people in the party. What's there is there and it's there because that what I think should be there. All the orks do not magically become ork champions simply because a high level party is moving about. If killing orks is becoming boring for your level 20 character.. Stop stomping around the ork kingdom. If your level 1 character gets ambushed by a group of trolls.. Perhaps you should have asked what kinds of critters are known to dwell in the are you are going to.
Death
First and foremost let me strongly urge players to avoid PC death as BEST they can. Death of a character is a serious issue. I don't like the fact that Death is such a little deal on so many servers. Death comes to a player at -10 HPs. Between 0 and -10 we use a bleeding system and PCs may still be healed back to health. There is also a rather generous chance of stabilization in this PW. Once a PC dies... his body and a substantial amount of blood and gore will fall to the ground. All possessions the character had on his person when he died can be found among the gore. These can be looted by any person who chooses to dig a bit. The gore itself will fade in about 5 minutes, but gear will be left behind alone for some time there after. When a PC is dead they are given the option of waiting for help. They may wait as long and as many times as they wish. As long as the spirit remains hopeful, the body shall remain and a cleric has the chance to bring the dead back to life. If the spirit of the dead desires to "respawn" and travel to the here after, that is his choice as well. A body item of the right weight for sex and size is left in the remains, this may be brought to a temple or a pc with raise dead or ressurection ability to recover the person from the afterlife. There may be other ways to come back to life as well. Death is costly and should be avoided.
Summoned beasts and familiars
In this PW, the summoning spells are made to act more like those described in traditional paper and pencil AD&D (or D&D3E to you newbies). Summoned creatures only last for a minute or so of real time. This extends a bit based on caster level. Summoned animals were never intended as an additional party members. Unlike other mods, I have not tried to replicate durations down to simply a couple melee rounds. Summoning spells should be useful, but not over powering. Familiars are very important to protect. Familiars can only be healed by feeding once every 8 hours.
Connection information
GameSpy category:
classic PnP Conversion
Server name:
World of Karador CEP2.4
Module name:
World of Karador CEP2.4
Direct connect:
67.137.115.122:5121Password required:
no
Required hakpaks:
CEP 2.4
Required game version:
1.69 (with
SoU and
HotU)
Player information
Primary game type(s):
classic PnP conversion
Treasure/magic level:
low to moderate
Levels played:
1-40
Maximum players:
32
Vault type:
local vaultEnforce legal characters:
no
Item level restrictions:
no
Player vs. player:
full PvPServer information
Server admin/owner:
Harkker (was Negalith)
DM timezone(s):
24 (United States)
Primary language:
English
