Neverwinter

Neverwinter is a fictional city-state in the Forgotten Realms campaign setting for the Dungeons & Dragons fantasy role-playing game. Neverwinter was founded by Lord Halueth Never. It sits on the northwestern coast of the subcontinent of Faerûn.
The city has been the home locale for the first graphical MMORPG ever created, the original Neverwinter Nights on AOL, which was developed by Stormfront Studios. BioWare later acquired the rights to the title and developed a series of best-selling role-playing video games under the name Neverwinter Nights.
In the Dungeons & Dragons 4th Edition version of the Forgotten Realms lore, Neverwinter was destroyed in the Spellplague and much of its population scattered. This was accompanied by a new trilogy of Drizzt novels taking place in the city as it is being rebuilt, written by R. A. Salvatore. Other products included the MMORPG Neverwinter.

Creative origins

Neverwinter was created by Ed Greenwood as part of his fledgling Forgotten Realms campaign setting.
Shannon Appelcline, the author of Designers & Dragons series, notes that while TSR was interested in publishing a new setting in 1986 "the story of the Realms actually began some two decades earlier. A young Ed Greenwood was a voracious reader, influenced by Poul Anderson, Edgar Rice Burroughs, Alexandre Dumas, Fritz Leiber, A. Merritt, William Shakespeare, and others. Some time between 1966 and 1969, Greenwood tried his hand at writing too, penning the first story of the Realms. It was the first of many stories of Mirt the Moneylender. In the years that followed, Mirt traveled up and down the Sword Coast in Greenwood's stories, and so the author discovered Mirabar, Luskan, Neverwinter, Port Llast, Waterdeep, and Baldur's Gate. Within a year he drawn a map showing these places, truly turning the stories into a world. And thus the Realms was born".

Publication history

Advanced Dungeons & Dragons 1st Edition

Neverwinter is a friendly city of craftsmen, who trade extensively via the great merchants of Waterdeep; their water-clocks and multi-hued lamps can be found throughout the Realms. Neverwinter gained its name from the skill of its gardeners, who contrived to keep flowers blooming throughout the months of snow - a practice they continue with pride. — Elminster's Notes

Neverwinter received an initial description in the Forgotten Realms Campaign Set. Jennell Jaquays expanded on Neverwinter in The Savage Frontier .

Advanced Dungeons & Dragons 2nd Edition

For AD&D 2nd Edition, the city was revisited in the boxed set the Forgotten Realms Campaign Setting and the Forgotten Realms Campaign Setting Revised. The Player's Guide to the Forgotten Realms Campaign also visited Neverwinter. This supplement was written in the form of a journal detailing the travels of an eclectic adventuring party.

All in all, Neverwinter is perhaps the most cosmopolitan city in Faerûn, escaping Waterdeep's slums and grasping competitiveness, and Silverymoon's harsher climate and heavier need for defense against orcs and other evils. Cities in Amn and Calimshan commonly claim to be more civilized, but merchants who trade there all say that Neverwinter truly is civilized, unlike some showier rivals who, as the sage Mellomir once put it, "have achieved decadence without the need for passing through civilization first". — Volo

Volo's Guide to the North contained extensive details about the city including landmarks, taverns and inns. It also went into detail about the surrounding area including the Neverwinter River, the Neverwinter Wood and the villages of Conyberry and Phandalin. Volo's Guide to the North was one in a series of guidebooks written by Ed Greenwood through the character Volothamp Geddarm's perspective with another character's commentary throughout.
In the boxed set The North: Guide to the Savage Frontier, characters and items from Neverwinter were included along with details about the area surrounding the city, such as the Neverwinter Wood.

3rd Edition & 3.5

Neverwinter made a brief appearance in the Forgotten Realms Campaign Setting. Appelcline commented that "the Sword Coast has long been one of the most detailed parts of the Forgotten Realms. Neverwinter lies in its north, just past the Mere of Dead Men. From the earliest days of the Realms, it was often mentioned as one of the most civilized cities in Faerûn. Though it made notable appearances in Volo's Guide to the North and The North: Guide to the Savage Frontier, prior to the publication of the Neverwinter Campaign Setting, the best detail on the city had always been found in computer games".
In 2002, Neverwinter became the main setting for Neverwinter Nights, a video game developed by BioWare. Between 2002 and 2006, seven expansion/premium packs were released for the game. The game's success led to a sequel, Neverwinter Nights 2 developed by Obsidian Entertainment, which was released on October 31, 2006.

4th Edition

Appelcline commented that with the sixth season of Encounters, Lost Crown of Neverwinter, "Wizards used Season 6 to highlight their newest campaign book for 4E: the Neverwinter Campaign Setting. They made a big deal of it, kicking it off with the Gates of Neverdeath adventure at D&D Games Day, and then continuing into the 14-week series of Forgotten Realms Encounters". Alex Lucard, for Diehard GameFAN, wrote that the Neverwinter Campaign Setting has "more detail about the area of Neverwinter than previous 4th Edition campaign settings have given to entire WORLDS". Lucard also highlighted that half of the book is a gazetteer with information on the present world state of Neverwinter: "For those of you looking to bridge between third and fourth edition's Neverwinter, there won't be much here for you. For everyone else, CONTENT CONTENT CONTENT. You want legends about why Neverwinter stays warm even in a region where it should be freezing? You get TWO. Do you want to learn about all sorts of important locations and buildings within the city of Neverwinter? It's here? Interested in the stats around the Lost Crown of Neverwinter, which the D&D Encounters are currently revolving around? They're in here! Want your characters to learn secret special moves from Drizzt Do'Urden himself? You can!"
Appelcline also wrote that the "Neverwinter Campaign Setting was launched as 4e's first major multimedia release — a marketing approach that Wizards would regularly use in later years. It was closely tied to a series of four novels, a comic book, two different computer games, and even a board game, The Legend of Drizzt. Two more Neverwinter computer games were appearing thanks to Wizards' 'transmedia' campaign. A new MMORPG simply called "Neverwinter" was to be the center of the Neverwinter rollout. Unfortunately it was delayed for two years due to the resolution of a computer gaming lawsuit and the subsequent sale of the developer, Cryptic Studios. Fortunately, players had Heroes of Neverwinter, a Facebook game, to keep them occupied in the meantime. Neverwinter finally appear only after the rest of the launch Neverwinter also got a lot of fictional attention in the early '10s. The heart of this was a quartet of novels by R.A. Salvatore called the Neverwinter Saga". Michael Harrison, for Wired, described Heroes of Neverwinter as "a surprisingly deep and, dare I say, playable Facebook game".
Mike Fahey, for Kotaku, wrote that Drizzt Do'Urden is "so popular with role-playing fans that Wizards of the Coast tapped his creator, R.A. Salvatore, to help lead players to Cryptic Studios' upcoming online PC game Neverwinter in a series of new novels. According to the writer, Wizards of the Coast called him up and asked him if he would be in the area when he wrote his next Drizzt book, and as luck would have it, he would be. After a summit to determine how to logically tie the story together with the marketing push, The Neverwinter Saga was born. His involvement in the Neverwinter game is someone less intense, but nonetheless important. Since his trilogy is essentially shaping a portion of that online world, Salvatore, Wizards of the Coast, and Cryptic Studios are collaborating to help keep characters and events straight".
On the transmedia project, Matt Faul, for Diehard GameFAN, wrote that "Neverwinter was of the most cosmopolitan cities in Faerûn, but was left mostly in ruins after the spell plague. If you're a fan of the Forgotten Realms, particularly the City of Neverwinter, this is an exciting time for you. No matter, if you're a video game player, tabletop game players, or just an avid reader Wizards of the Coast has something waiting for you in the legendary City of Neverwinter". Jason Wilson, for VentureBeat, highlighted that "this transmedia project — not only is Neverwinter part of the Forgotten Realms campaign setting, it's also a book series from author R.A. Salvatore — is also coming out during an interesting time in D&D history. Neverwinter is coming out while the 4th Edition of the tabletop game is winding down and the upcoming edition, dubbed 'D&D Next' for now, is in playtesting".

5th Edition

What was the blasted, wounded city of Neverwinter just a decade ago is now an exciting, humming place, where folk seem eager to throw off the hardships from which they have emerged and create a new, brighter future for their city. It is the Lord Protector's hope that, with commerce and income both on the rise, and talented craftfolk returning to ply their trades, that Neverwinter will someday again be worthy of its former epithet: the City of Skilled Hands. — Sword Coast Adventurer's Guide

The Neverwinter MMORPG made the jump to 5th Edition and in 2014, it received a Tyranny of Dragons storyline update. This coincided with the publication of the Tyranny of Dragons adventure modules, Hoard of the Dragon Queen and The Rise of Tiamat, with the goal of creating a "shared story experience over different media . The player's actions in the online campaign will be overlaid on those in the game's more traditional tabletop campaign". The Neverwinter MMORPG has continued to receive expansions that tie-into tabletop adventure storylines such as: Storm King's Thunder, Tomb of Annihilation, and Waterdeep: Dragon Heist.
In 2015, Neverwinter was featured in the Sword Coast Adventurer's Guide. It included a few details on the founding of the city, information on Neverwinter being rebuilt post the Spellplague and The Ruining, and an updated city map. Storm King's Thunder also included a short description of the city and the Neverwinter Woods.