Comments and suggestions welcome, this is a quick and dirty draft. This will be the main document to point new people to as well as advertise the server where appropriate, so help me make this stand out.
Escape from the UnderdarkEscape from the Underdark is an intensely ambitious and hard-core story-telling NWN server with a deeply atmospheric and welcoming world. Although set in the Forgotten Realms, the atmosphere is described by its players as an engaging mix of Mad Maxx, Dark City, Dante, George R. R. Martin, and H. P. Lovecraft.
The town of Sanctuary is a strange settlement of escaped slaves seeking a place of freedom in the darkest, most inhospitable part of the Underdark. The town itself is built into the ruins of an ancient, abandoned and mysterious svirfneblin (deep gnome) metropolis, filled with ruins and disturbing secrets. All too aware of the dangers outside the gates, many of the town's citizens accept what little safety they have and resign themselves to their life in the depths. Others yearn for a return to the surface world, and research the lost secrets of the rumored "Way" found by one of the town's founders.
World Features
Escape from the Underdark is a low magic, slow-leveling, low level world. Custom and flavorful loot is common, but the feel is very much of desperate survival and not epic hack and slash. Characters begin at level 2 and can progress steadily towards level 10. Advancement beyond level 10 is possible but increasingly more difficult. Combat is challenging and generally requires team-work, survival is not easy.
Story-based conflict and intrigue. Multiple flavorful supported town factions (groups) including the Watch, a mercenary company, a thieves guild, the Spellguard, a democratically elected council that sets the town's laws, and others. Story-driven conflict is common and embraced. Players are encouraged to begin their own groups and guilds.
This is a full PvP server, with a carefully tuned OOC code of conduct to ensure fair play. Conflict for IC reasons is fully embraced, mindless OOC trouble-making is not tolerated.
25+ Scripted Quests (with more planned), multiple adventuring zones, dozens of Underdark wilderness areas to explore, and a constantly evolving world-map.
Mysteries and secrets abound, the riddle of Sanctuary can be seen as a collossal detective story.
Extremely high level of DM interaction. Our DM team are all enthusiastic about making your character's story come to life, and helping this world become as immersive and engaging as possible. Prelude events (essentially DM quests that establishes how a totally new PC arrives in the town) happen regularly and can be signed up for. DM quests and interaction is extremely common, DMs are very accessible through our IRC channel to discuss concepts or issues.
100% Hak Free (no required downloads, no reliance on CEP, optional portrait pack is available)
At the time of writing this, the server is finishing up an extensive closed several month testing session to iron out major bugs and observe how the world functions. With irregular up-times, a password protected server, and advertisement only from one role-player to another we have a very favorable player-base. Average player-base during EST/GMT day and evening has tended to be from 10-20 people, with an occasional peak of up to 29 during major events and much lower numbers during Australian/Asian time-zones.
Extremely OOC friendly and welcoming player-base and DM-staff, willing to help novice role-players and new players have as much fun on this server as we're having.
System Features
custom subrace system - EfU has an entirely custom and impressive sub-race system. Subraces are earned through an OOC application process to keep them rare and ensure the high standards of quality expected for our world.
Custom death system - The death system on EfU is completely custom and has serious consequences. Dead characters can be raised/resurrected by a NPC or PC cleric or choose a respawning option. Respawning characters can respawn either at the location of their corpse or in the town Mausoleum. All options involve substantial experience loss.
Custom quest system - EfU has a completely custom and home-built quest system that maximizes script efficiency while allowing the builders a tremendous amount of freedom in building independent and engaging quests. Fetch corpses for a mad necromancer, free slaves from the dungeons of nefarious goblin slavers, explore haunted & cursed drow castles, or descend into the stinking ruins of a wererat cult.
Custom experience system - Our experience system is completely custom to suit our needs. Experience is very low compared to most persistent worlds. Instead of hacking through every monster you find, it may be wiser to instead sneak around them to accomplish an objective. Our experience system rewards group-partying, discourages spawn "farming" and incorporates a large degree of randomness to ensure no optimum party make-up.
Persistent storage system - Persistent storage that lasts through resets is a perk that we reserve for groups and factions to ensure database efficiency, but is available.
Custom treasure system - Completely custom treasure system that drops from 100s of possible custom ambient-loot. Treasure drops (while universally rare and special), vary according to monster type, class, and other factors.
Custum summoning system - EfU has a completely custom summoning system that replaces the standard bioware monsters with instead a large number of possible themes. Search the world for reagents to activate hidden themes, or trade with other summoners.
Custom gambling systems - Play dice in a seedy inn, or bet on your favorite rat-racer. Many more systems are being worked on and planned.
Top of the line dedicated server, dedicated high-bandwidth connection, extremely efficient coding and world-design ensures maximum stability.