The Sanctum

A player asked me the following regarding a recent post about my plans for Sanctum 3. I thought it might be of general interest, so I decided to re-post it here.

• "A question if I may, what do you mean by three companions and five henchmen?"

This is probably my own terminology more than anything else, but by "companions" I mean long-term party members who are tied to the overall plot. In Sanctum, that’s Robin, Orion, and Diana. By "henchmen" I mean party members who join or are "hired" mainly for combat support and story flavor on a specific quest or quests. Since I made you leave one of your three companions behind near the end of Chapter 2 (and don’t worry, you’ll see them again in Chapter 4), I felt that it would be a good idea to let you be able to "hire on" some temporary help in Chapter 3 if you need it. There will be five such "henchmen" available in different areas and for different quests. Although they’re intended to be more "henchmen" than full "companions," they’ve already developed very vivid personalities in my mind that I want to try to translate into the module as well. Two of them will also be potential (though not long-term) romance options (one male, one female).

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There’s now a page on my website for the upcoming module:

Sanctum of the Archmage 3: The Miracle Worker, Act II - Mission to Rayche

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I just wanted to post a quick update on the progress of Sanctum 3. I’ve been alternating between design work and technical integration to make the module compatible with Project Q, and I’m pleased to be able to report that both of those tasks are basically done now.

A lot of basic 2DA and Hak work was needed to make the new module compatible with both its previously existing custom content (including CEP 2.2), and Project Q. This was a big job, and while it had several very tedious parts to it, it turned out not to be as bad as I’d feared. The worst part was moving some of the conflicting phenotypes to new numbers, which required a lot of editing and renaming of individual files. Now that it’s done, I’ll be able to combine features from Sanctum Chapters 1-2, CEP, and Project Q.

I’ve also been working feverishly for the past month or so to complete a comprehensive design write-up for the module’s quests, areas, and custom content. With that done, I now have a clearer idea of what the scope of Sanctum 3 will be, as well as some material that I can give to collaborators. To give a hint at the scope, the current design comes out at:

• twenty-two quests
• sixty-six areas
• three companions
• five henchmen
• five romances

I’m also happy to report that I now have two confirmed members of the Sanctum Team, one of whom is the very talented Estelindis. You may know her from her NWN1 CC work, and as the creator of the new custom heads for Orion, Diana and Robin in Sanctum v3.2. She’s going to be helping with some very special custom content for the next chapter, which if it works out as we hope should be really terrific. Aderyn has agreed to join the playtesting team, and several others have expressed interest in helping as well.

So barring complications, the pace of development on the saga should be ramping up substantially in the near future. I’ll keep you all posted.

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