It’s strange how the sound of a single word or the sight of a particular arrangement of letters on a page can instantly give rise to a wide array of feelings.
Some names have more power than others.
Neriak.
It’s an exceptionally strong name. For me, at least, it’s in hearing it out loud. Three syllables that contain a sense of dark malevolence, raise tales of intrigues unending, and bring forth images of a race of people whose ambition is outmatched only by their ruthlessness and cunning.
There’s another name that may not be familiar, but it too plays a significant part in what’s coming.
Arasai.
It’s a lighter sound, which is fitting for what it describes. It also sounds as if that lightness has been twisted. Meticulously developed, or crafted, if you will. Like a fine weapon on display.
As many of you have no doubt guessed, I’m talking about the next major live content release for EverQuest II. We’ve talked a lot over the past year about our commitment to making sure there’s always something interesting going on in Norrath. What’s coming takes that even further.
With Echoes of Faydwer, we had hoped that people would enjoy a return to a more traditional MMO starting experience, and were pleased with the results. We got a lot of positive reaction by introducing the starting city of Kelethin inside of Greater Faydark, as well as a new race, the Fae.
Later this month, we’ll be releasing the largest free content addition that EQ2 has ever seen. The complement to that experience: The city of Neriak, the large outdoor zone of Darklight Wood, and a new playable race, the Arasai, one of the races who will be able to start there.
These zones are another collaboration with our SOGA studio in Taiwan, the same studio that developed the characters and environments for The Fallen Dynasty. Their artists working in conjunction with our designers and artists have really brought Neriak back to life.
We decided to go this direction for a couple reasons. As we were developing the storyline for Faydwer, we saw the potential both in gameplay and story development for a dark, twisted shadow of the Fae, and we’ve wanted to explain a few important things about this area of the world for quite some time.
We pick up the story of Neriak 300 years ago.
It was no secret even then that Queen Cristanos Thex of Neriak was the embodiment of malevolent ambition. So close to the crown and ultimate power over her own kind, but it was destined to pass her by. When King Tearis’ time came, the empire would fall to the hands of her son, Prince Talvus Thex.
While the War of the Fay raged, with the Crown Prince and his father otherwise occupied in Faydwer, the Queen saw her opportunity and exploited it mercilessly. It wasn’t long before both King Tearis and his son fell to mysterious circumstances in combat.
Cristanos seized the power she had long desired, ending the Thex Dynasty in one final, brutal stroke.
(“Two, actually,” she would later recount to her most trusted priestess.)
Neriak, however, would not remain unscathed for long under her rule.
It’s not entirely certain what allowed the Leatherfoot Raiders of Rivervale to pose the threat that they did to Neriak. Some say it was assistance from foreigners from the outermost quarter of the city, others whispered that the Teir’Dal had been betrayed by those who remained loyal to the King, and yet others credit the assault on Nektulos by the Kithicor Rangers. In the end, it was no matter. The effect would be the same.
At Cristanos’ order, the high priestess Tseralith made use of an artifact known as the Hand of Malice summoning forth a beast of great destruction to seal Neriak off from the invaders.
The surviving invaders gave the ruins that resulted the name “Fallen Gate,” and soon abandoned them to the spirits that rose from the destruction.
Unbeknownst to the attackers, however, the grand expanse of Neriak Proper was entirely spared.
Sealed off from her enemies, her people and homeland assumed destroyed, Cristanos has had nothing but time. Freed from influences of the outside, Cristanos only grew more and more malicious, soon thinking of herself as the divine manifestation of Hate to her people – a god in her own right.
To her, you see, the Dark Elves are the “correct” way that Elves should have developed, though most of the races of Norrath consider them a wicked perversion of High Elves.
One day while toying with one of the captured Fae spirit buds she frequently tormented to amuse herself, she realized how perfectly fitting it would be to fix what the old gods had gotten wrong, and set the evolution of the Fae along their “correct” course as well.
The screams, it is said, were legendary.
If you’re interested in what happened next, you’ll just have to see it in game for yourself.
We’ll see you there.
____
Scott Hartsman
Senior Producer, EverQuest II
Producer's Letter - May 2007
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