Shadowfall and Jashemi

Legend has it that the town of Shadowfall was created by the mysterious necromancer Shadleish, who for forty years bestrode the Sword Coast with his three apprentices, causing havoc and destruction wherever he went. Shadleish's power, it is said, came from a god's tear (it is unknown which god), swallowed as an infant during the Time of Troubles, which resided within him all his life without ever dissipating.

It was in Calimshan, in the shadow of a great volcano, that Shadleish, wearied and ancient, announced to his apprentices,

"Whosoever ends my life shall inherit all my power."

That night, the apprentices stole into the necromancer's tent. Fearing each other, they had agreed to strike in unison, and all three knives tore into Shadleish's heart at once.

The old man smiled, and at once the apprentices knew something was wrong: they could feel the tear of the unnamed god, surging into their veins, an immense and uncontrollable power pulsing with agony. It was a power that Shadleish had somehow been able to keep from destroying him, but in their unprepared bodies it would soon wipe them out. It was Morgar, the youngest, who reacted in time; focusing his mind, he began to heal the sorcerer's wounds from within.

For six years, stooped in a patch of shadow where sunlight never fell, the apprentices fought to keep Shadleish alive. But they were unable to recuperate him: it was all they could do to constantly feed the energy of the god's tear back into keeping him alive. As the years passed, however, they found themselves at least able to concentrate their powers elsewhere: Morgar was able to force a nearby trader's ship onto the rocks below the mountain, enslaving the crew and forcing them to construct him a tower to dwell in.

The apprentices' descendants, the Black Crescent Necromancers, still suffer from the Crying Curse: to prevent themselves from coming to a hideous end and- possibly- destroying their town and all of its inhabitants, they must constantly devote a portion of their energy to keeping the withered heart of Shadleish, locked in the depths of Shadowkeep where the sorcerer first fell, beating. Nevertheless, because of the awesome power the curse brings them, the life of a Black Crescent is always perilous: there are plenty of subordinates who long to take their place, and often succeed. And, below, in the melting pot of the Dregs, a thousand petty sorcerers dream of taking Shadleish's curse for themselves...

A few shots of Jashemi, the paladin companion: she claims to be from Mulhorand, though her roots are far more mysterious than that: she has come to Shadowfall on the trail of a past lover, who disappeared, along with many of her belongings, in damned suspicious circumstances. I wanted to try and get the whole Adam Miller's Anera beautiful-white-blonde thing going on. Sadly NWN2 doesn't have the most beautiful faces of any game ever made, but she still looks OK to me. A romance option, for good characters mostly.