The evolution of Viviana and the Shadowdancers
└ posted on Saturday, 12 December 2015, by Novil
When Gaia was developed as a campaign for the PC game Neverwinter Nights 2, important parts of the story were completely different. The role of Viviana and the Shadowdancers has probably changed the most with respect to the already published chapters:
- Viviana was a regular member of the Shadowdancers who only joined the group of heroes right before the jailbreak.
- In the subsequent chapters, Viviana was the least important member of the group. She had the fewest appearances and practically no impact on the overall story.
- There were no romantic feelings between her and Ilias at all.
- The Shadowdancers were a classical thieves’ guild led by a shady middle-aged guy as you’d expect it from a D&D campaign. Their members were in general much less likable.
- It took the heroes much longer to convince the Shadowdancers of helping them. Ilias & Co. had to carry out several dangerous quests for the Shadowdancers. I still really like some of the quests, but the pace of the story would have become way too slow with more than just the short party quest.
- The party quest was written by my mother, by the way. Just like a huge part of the rest of the original story. However, almost none of the lines written for the game have ended up in the comic since it would have become way too wordy otherwise.
- The heroes’ contact person at the Shadowdancers was an apt female thief named Jael Nightingale who did not appear in later chapters. Viviana in the comic is like a mixture of Viviana and Jael Nightingale in the game. That’s the main reason why I’ve chosen Jael as Viviana’s given name.
- The country of Ileasaar did not exist in any shape or form in the game, not even in such things as item descriptions.
- Instead, there was a criminal rebel group in Aracona which played an important role as antagonists of the Shadowdancers.
- There is a reason why Viviana has these visions and it will be (partially) revealed in this chapter… dun duun duuuun. 😉
I think that Viviana has become a much better character in the comic than she was in the game and I’m proud of the result of her transformation.
Nice information. I did play with the Neverwinter Nights 1 Editor a bit, back in the day.
Never was any good at writing stories. I had a lot of ideas, but no focus of writing them down or turning them into proper campaign.
Great background, Novil. I’m always interested in how a story evolves over time. I was a big fan of Babylon5 and loved hearing from JMS how things changed as it was written. I would love to see any more of these write-ups as you get the notion.
Your MOM wrote for your DND campaign?!
…
Is she adopting? I can cook, clean, tell jokes, and employed.
@10: so I am wrong with my guess, that this chapter is about to end 😉
Viviana is adorbs. Ilias is a very lucky man.
Honestly, this sounds a bit better structured with the flow of chapter 1 and 2 than what we got. You were right to not make any dungeon quests that would have dragged on for too long before Lilith’s jailbreak, though. Yes, Viviana is a better character now for all these changes, but it’s at the expense of everything else, as the story seems to revolve around her more than anyone else.
Hmmm. After further reflection, I have a couple more questions related to Viviana’s development.
1) Was one of the 2 previous characters (Viviana and Jael) having visions in the original or has that been added? I would assume that it’s an important part of the story, so it would have been carried over.
2) Was the whole back-story of the Bara’s murder and the locked casket part of the original or was that just a framing device to get Viviana and the heroes involved?
I understand that that is a fairly common dilemma among writers. Many have commented upon falling in love with some plotline, substory, or character that they end up having to cut from the final product in order to tighten up the story and make if flow better.
@ Sammieo:
I’m not sure it’s really at the expense of everything else. I suspect that the other characters (except Lilith) gained just as little spotlight, if not even less, than they do now.
Ilias was likely the player controlled character. He may have lost a lot of spotlight on account of no longer having that role, but that has more to do with the switch from game to web comic than with Viviana. Ryn, Alissa and Sandril looks like characters who were mainly there as muscle who fight with you. Viviana also seemingly had that role after the prison break was over, she was there to give the player a rogue to use more than to be a character to interact with.
In my experience, Neverwinter Nights campaigns revolve more around killing enemies, traps, hidden/locked doors and last but not least, loot, than around specific characters or themes.
I suspect it’s more so that Viviana got a much bigger role here than in the game while Ilias, Ryn, Alissa and Sandril did less so.
A webcomic is a different medium than a RPG. There, you want lots and lots of quests and adventures, the more the better.In fact the plot serves little purpose other to as a skeleton to hang all the adventures on. In a webcomic, or any story-telling medium for that matter, too many adventures get in the way of the story and the readers would get bored rather quickly.
In the early part of Gaia, I remember thinking it is taking them an awful long time to spring Lilith from prison. If Novil had stretched that out much longer, he would likely have lost me. As it was, I think he told the story about as well as could be expected. It was neither too long nor too short. It didn’t feel rushed nor did it feel padded. There was really only one bit that I found remotely flabby. That was those two pages with the fashion designer at the Baltors’ part. Those seemed rather superfluous to me, but who knows? Maybe good-old Flavius Aelar will show up later to serve the plot in some way. .:) Nothing else has been wasted in the comic, so why him?
@ Crystalgate:
That’s what I mean. The story has four other key characters, each of whom we were introduced to in the first chapter for fifty whole pages. Ilias is the character whose perspective, since the first page, we follow the most. Hence we’re put in his perspective. Being taken out of that perspective, as he and everyone but Lilith are gradually reduced to extras for Viviana’s story, was very jarring. It never clicked for me that Novil was effectively giving us a second, longer, much more awkward introduction, and so I spent most of it looking for everyone else.
Your assumption about the cast is likely correct, so I can sympathise with Novil going after the characters he thinks up more organically in this case. But again, I would have preferred him spending time to show them as a likeable cast again. I’ve not enjoyed Sandril since his squabbles with Ilias in chapter 1 stopped. Ilias has screentime, but little expression other than a mellow, reasonably sound guy. Alissa might as well not be there. Ryn is the only exception of this roster, as not only has he provided comic relief and added to the tone, he’s also not had his moments (arguing with his GF, jailbreaking Lili) attributed to Viviana.
Viviana is a good character, and if she were introduced as the clear protagonist from chapter 1, I’d probably like her more. Instead it feels like she’s stolen someone else’s story.
Is that NWN2 module available for download anywhere? (And if so, can it be played as a single-player game?)
Would have loved playing that campaign. As to the NWN 1 & 2 editors, I have used them alot. I even ran 2 NWN servers back in the day, one my own world and the other a cast off of badlands that I modified and the first version of badlands to use NWNX with Leto.
Been playing D&D in one form or another since ’79. I even have a copy of Chainmail.
Wyvern wrote:
We never published anything playable.
Sammieo wrote:
I don’t feel like Viviana’s stealing anyone’s story. There’s a good reason for her to be there: without her, the others wouldn’t have been able to rescue Lilith. Then she gave the whole party asylum and even citizenship in her own country, thus protecting them from the legal consequences of their doing.
Yes, she did have a lot of airtime, which shows that her plot is important to the main story. I expect that the others will get back into the story soon enough.
Also, if you have a closer look, the whole year 2015 was less than two weeks in Gaia. There’s lots of time remaining for the others to catch up.