#Fenthick was stupidly named and should not have been executed

[songofmadness]

Ok, Part 2: the Screaming Continues, I guess. Let’s have a quick look at the plot of NWN1. I’ve never actually played it, mostly because I was a bitty thing with no money when it came out, and now I’m old(ish) and the graphics are just below the level that my eyeballs can safely handle. So what I’ve been able to gather is from wikis and off the cuff mentions in various blogs. It was surprisingly hard to piece together, so if anyone can recommend a decent walkthrough, that’d be lovely. Alright, lets go...

Herein lies: an outsiders retelling of the plot of NWN1, with much rage-fueled flailing and confusion. There is a plague.

((This is Fine, I'm sure the subsequent games will at least take vague note of the fact that even a conservative third of the population suddenly dying is going to massively destabilise the economy and might very well lead to a decades long decline...)) Plague is being deliberately caused by BBEG1 Desther, at the behest of BBEG2, who is acting on behalf of BBEG3 the Evil Lizard Queen Morag.

(How do we know she's evil? It's literally right there in her name, in at least half the sources I tracked down trying to figure out this mess. She's a female lizard with epic teeth in a position of power! Of course she's evil. Also a slaveowner, because gods forbid we have a single instance of the Old Ones not being slavemongering shitweasels. That would be like having a Fantasy Desert Kingdom that isn't equally slavery themed! Can't be having that.) Desther's takedown leads to the remarkably stupid miscarriage of justice that is Fenthick's kneejerk execution. Dude just had shitty taste in friends, that really shouldn't be a hanging offence. But still, that's probably the best example of "medieval justice system" I've come across in any Forgotten Realms. Oh, were you standing adjacent to the guy who offended the Powers That Be? Too bad, good sir, you're dead now. And maybe your entire extended family with you! Fun.

Aribeth goes understandably apeshit due to her boyfriend's unjust execution (isn't the main religion of Neverwinter Tyr? Wut?), ELQ Morag whispers some probably quite reasonable sweet nothings in her ear -- "They killed your man, honey. Come to the darkside, we have cookies bloody vengeance!" -- and Aribeth nopes on out to lead an army of Luskans against Neverwinter.

Except. Why is Luskan now involved?? Other than the obvious reason: It Is Always Loki Luskan.

Long story short (and omitting at least six hours of me howling at my laptop), Luskan invades Neverwinter in 1372 as the grand culmination of NWN1's plot. Because.... reasons. IDFK. Why was Luskan even there? 

More to the point, why did Aribeth automatically seize upon Luskan as the best chance of achieving her vengeance? Because: 

1) she’d been in direct opposition against Luskan forces for ages, surely there had to be some kind of pushback against the Great Champion of Neverwinter suddenly showing up to take command, and 

2) Luskan’s kind of at a massive lowpoint right about then. Or at least they SHOULD BE. They’ve been kicked out of Ruathym (yet again) by the all powerful Lord’s Alliance, and they’re just finishing up a wildly unsuccessful five years trying to invade Mintarn and Orlumber. I don’t even know where that is, but I do know that five years of throwing your men away on nothing doesn’t leave you with much of a fighting force to play with.

Actually, also 3) This is right after Arklem Greeth goes full lich and reassumes control of both the Hosttower and the High Captains. Luskan has had a shit few years decades and now Daddy is home, and angry, and no one is getting away with nonsense right now. Why is Arklem F’ing Greeth handing this super a N g E r Y paladin/blackguard lady an army? Even if he wanted to (for the lulz, perhaps) how does he have YET ANOTHER ARMY to spare?

*deep breath* Ok. Ok, backing away from the Luskans for a minute. Before I actually start screaming. The ongoing nightmare that is Luskan can have it’s own post.

Right, anyway, Luskan invades, is foiled by the magnificent Hero of Neverwinter (very recently the sole graduate of their adventuring class!), Lizard Queen is also vanquished and Aribeth either dies or is later executed by her former friends. Nasher is so hacked off by this entire chain of events that he suppresses all information regarding this fuckery. Nevermind that he’s at least partly to blame - why did the KC get a lawyer despite being accused of mass murder and not Fenthick, who just assumed guilty by association? Excuse me, Tyr? Wut? And then....

World reset, I guess. I just. I have been in or adjacent to the SCA for long enough that even though my focus is very much not combat centred I have learned Much About War. Because that is often all anybody bloody talks about. And because I don't particularly care about combat itself, I generally meander off into "Ok, so there was this battle and this battle and this ten year stalemate in that region... what did that do to trade/the availability of dyestuffs for the next twenty odd years?" Because ultimately I just wanna dye some period accurate wool.

My painfully meandering point here is that the civilizations don't just bounce back after a war. They don't bounce back after a plague either. Especially one as virulent as the Wailing Death was meant to be. Every bit of lore I could scrounge about it keeps saying that "the [majority of the populace of Neverwinter] were dead or dying within a tenday". Wut?

How the hell is the city ever meant to recover from that? How is Neverwinter even functional as a city two years later? Where did all the new citizens come from? Where is the violent economic downturn stemming from the sudden traumatic loss of most of the previous citizens??

And why is Neverwinter accepting Luskan ambassadors TWO YEARS LATER?? Because lets not forget, I got into this mess trying to write a story set in NWN2. WHICH TAKES PLACE JUST TWO YEARS LATER. SOMEHOW.

Further rants about the aftermath of war and/or plague in medieval society to follow…