This was being discussed in another thread.... which I am attempting to save from derailment.

https://efupw.com/efu1-forum/topic/36/36387/join-team-myrkul-everything-you-ever-wanted-to-know/index.html?amp;start=15

Ultimatley it is moot what is canon and not, the DMs pick what is goes into EFU and what does not.

My argument that NWN, NWN2 and HOTU are not cannon:

The 4E timeline is out. It omits the major events of HOTU and NWN2, such as mehistopholes creating a huge army of the damned and attacking an unknown portion of faerun. It also omits the king of shadows causing serious trouble on the sword coast. If these events were in the canon, why are they not in the 4E timeline? Also, parts of both games conflict with canon.

My argument that it is moot: NWN/NWN2 occur 30 or 40 years after the current year on EFU, correct? This means most of the events from both games have no baring on EFU at all, the only thing which might matter are older events, refered to in the game.

Ultimatley, I do not think it really matters if they are canon or not.

Merely out of personal interest of course, no real impact on roleplaying on EfU.

well, for my character it may. Basically, he was supposed to of been a kid durring the wailing death ('round 14 or so years old), and actually fought several thugs in Neverwinter (from the gang the Knight-captain fights), and origonally went down to Underdark to aid the Seer (from HOTU) against the Drow.

Not a major change, but it basically was supposed to explain how he got down into Underdark.

Peronal i hate what they have done with the 4e timeline and ill be ignoring it. (grumbles about stupid 100 year jump and spellplague)

For the most part, we ignore FR videogames, although we do include them if we so wish. Changes in 4e will not be affecting us.

We've basically ignored canon post-1372, and we pick and choose what history we accept for the years before, usually as it comes up (which I don't think really happens outside our deities list).

The NWN and SoU campaigns take place in 1372 (the plague in Neverwinter is new news in Hilltop), making it two to three years ago (depending on the month, as 1375 has just started). I'm not sure how much time there is between SoU and HotU.

I, personally, will never recognize the existence, canon or otherwise, of a Drow city run by an open cleric of Eilistraee, and would like to maintain that she (Eilistraee) is a Lolthan ploy meant to capture treasonous Drow and gullible fools. I'm not sure how much "official" DM support I have in regards to the Lolthan ploy bit.

The NWN series is exactly as much canon as EfU. That is, not canon, but based on it. NWN2 takes place no more than a handful of years after the Wailing Death (notice how Nasher still rules the city). Since SoU and HotU are separated by a stay of indeterminate length in the Shadow Plane, it's impossible to say exactly how long after the SoU storyline HotU takes place. However, several NPCs from NWN appear in HotU without indications of having aged (only one is confirmed dead), so we're probably not talking much more than a few years.

[Edit] Since I have now read the thread from which this discussion sprouted:

None of the games are canon; all of the storylines are officially approved by WotC (this is not exclusive to NWN, but extends to all games based on intellectual properties owned by WotC, such as PS:T); some of the game events have been adopted as canon.

For example, while the games Baldur's Gate, Baldur's Gate II, and associated expansion packs are not canon, the events in the series have been adopted as canon. There are (purportedly bad) novels detailing the events of the Baldur's Gate series. The subject is hard to discuss as only an officially WotC approved timeline would be able to answer the question and, AFAIK, despite official statements by WotC, the newest official timeline largely ignores the parts of the games that have otherwise been adopted as canon. That's only from a secondary source, though, I haven't seen the timeline myself.

The dates did in fact have a bearing in the case of my rogue character (Tarnis Westwind) that I had some time ago.

he was a halfling engineer who had been awarded the contract to rebuild part of Neverwinter after the war with Luskan and the wailing death.

It doesn't really matter as EfU is a jumble of things all happening at once. We have to create a suspension-of-disbelief and assume that ALL of these events are happening at the same time...even if they weren't. Other wise we'd have to wait to make characters that fit the canon timeline.

It's safe to say that creating characters with generic histories, meaning they could have taken place at any point in time and aren't linked to any canon/non-canon mega-event like the wailing death, Mephistopheles' rampage or the King of Shadows, is the best bet.