Neverwinter Nights

Neverwinter Nights (NWN) is a third-person role-playing video game set in the Forgotten Realms campaign setting, using game mechanics based on Dungeons & Dragons 3rd edition rules. Its engine was designed around an internet-based model for running a massively multiplayer online game (MMOG), allowing end users to host game servers with the goal of creating a potentially infinite multiplayer framework. The game takes its name from the original Neverwinter Nights online title, considered the first graphical massively multiplayer online role-playing game (MMORPG), which ran on AOL from 1991 to 1997.

The story begins in Neverwinter as the player character (PC), guided by Lady Aribeth, is sent to recover four creatures—a dryad, intellect devourer, yuan-ti, and cockatrice—collectively known as the Waterdhavian creatures. They are needed to create a cure for the Wailing Death, a plague sweeping the city and forcing a quarantine. With help from Fenthick Moss (Aribeth’s love interest) and Desther (Fenthick’s friend), the PC retrieves the creatures while being attacked by mysterious cult assassins tied to the spread of the plague. As the cure is being made, Castle Neverwinter is assaulted by Desther’s minions, revealing his betrayal. Desther steals the completed cure and flees, with the PC and Fenthick in pursuit. After a short battle, Desther surrenders. He is sentenced to burn at the stake, and Fenthick—despite not knowing Desther’s true intentions—is sentenced to hang. The PC reunites with Aribeth, and together they begin hunting the cult behind the plague and the attack. With assistance from Aarin Gend, Neverwinter’s spymaster, the PC recovers cultist diaries and letters from someone named Maugrim, convincing Aribeth the cult’s headquarters are in Luskan. Aribeth goes ahead, and the PC follows after speaking with Gend again. In Luskan, rumors spread that Aribeth is aligning with the cult. Those fears are confirmed when she is discovered meeting with Maugrim and Morag, Queen of the Old Ones. They seek magical relics called the Words of Power. The PC finds every Word except the one held by the cult, and learns the Words open a portal to a pocket world within the Source Stone, where Morag and the other Old Ones reside. The PC confronts Aribeth; depending on how the encounter is handled, she either surrenders or is killed. The PC then defeats Maugrim for the final Word, uses the Words to enter the Source Stone, and battles Morag. After Morag dies, the PC escapes as the world inside the Stone implodes.