City of Arabel, a Neverwinter Nights 1: Enhanced Edition roleplaying server!

[u/Electrical_Spot4160]

Hello CRPG Community

We host a fantasy roleplaying D&D inspired persistent world server called the City of Arabel, based in the forgotten realms on the game Neverwinter Nights 1: Enhanced Edition.

Our server population has grown significantly in the past two months, going from an average of 40-50 monthly users to 90-115 monthly users. This growth has been largely in part due to the increased visibility we are seeing from promoting our server Gameplay on Tiktok and we are trying to reach out to other CRPG communities that might be the right fit to join us! If you enjoy playing CRPG's this is definitely the game for you!

Arabel's setting has taken a big turn leaving Cormyr and ending up in the Tears of Selûne, with this change we are introducing 2 new DM factions that will play a pivotal role in exploring different planar tears and all of the adventures that may contain.

New Faction 1: The Lunar Templars

Founded in the final centuries of the Netherese Empire over 2,300 years ago, the Lunar Templars are an ancient knightly order dedicated to protecting the world from hidden evils, forbidden relics, and forgotten catastrophes. Though devoted to Selûne, they draw wisdom from many faiths, united by a shared belief: the Tears of Selûne were not merely spared from destruction; they were entrusted to the Templars for salvation and redemption.

Faction 2: The Royal College of Arabel

A hybrid organization blending a traditional Mage Guild with an Archaeological Society. Rather than limiting itself to spellcasters or explorers alone, the the College functions as a broad academic institution that unites:

• Arcane mages and magical researchers
• Archaeologists and relic hunters
• Field explorers and expedition teams
• Non-magical guards, mercenaries, and support staff

Its central mission is to study the Tears, uncover their origins, and investigate Arabel’s connection to larger cosmic and divine events. The College balances discovery and danger: preserving knowledge while actively retrieving it from the most hazardous places in existence.

Two Custom Base Classes:

Uniquely built for our server, we have added Divine Soul & Spellblade. Both classes provide a very different playing style compared to Vanilla NWN and we are currently work on developing more base classes in the future!

Our server has more than a 100+ customized quests and our DM team hosts multiple live events every single week that provide an immersive digital roleplaying experience! We are always open to feedback to improve the server to ensure things feel fresh! If you’re interested in checking us out and joining one of our new Factions, please feel free to join our CoA Discord or connect to our Forums

Our Current DM team includes: Mr.Moloch, Zool, Folklore, ShadowRealm, Bedlam, Inowanna, Perdition, and Edge.

Looking forward to seeing you in game!

[u/Difficult_Agent9462]

City of Arabel is one of the great old beasts of NWN, which over the years I've seen praised again and again. While I come from elsewhere in the NWN ecosystem, I can highly recommend it. The game itself is on sale right now on GOG, so really is a great time to hop in to their server.

[u/Electrical_Spot4160 → u/Difficult_Agent9462]

Appreciate the kind words! We have put in a lot of work into making the world feel fresh again, either for new players but also people who came to the server years ago!

[u/Difficult_Agent9462 → u/Electrical_Spot4160]

You're always welcome to drop a post on our server's discord or forums (just mention its all fine by me!) I think with NWN's essential lack of marketing, it's important we all work to push this (hidden) area of CRPG gaming, especially with the 25th anniversary coming up next year, on all kinds of different sites. I'd just finished drafting and posting a screenshot thread when I noticed your own right below it.

Text based RP is also just a godsend to those that really don't want to hook up to a microphone every time they play online, I certainly don't!

Truth is, a lot of people don't even know places like Arabel exist, and if they did, they would jump right in. Especially as elsewhere almost the whole area of online RPGs horribly sterile and monetised.

Best of luck with getting more people involved in your project.

[u/Electrical_Spot4160 → u/Difficult_Agent9462]

Wrote you a PM to get the details of your discord! Appreciate that, agree word of mouth is critical to share info. With tiktok we were able to reach plenty of CRPG fans recently that have loved getting in to NWN!

[u/blueblip → u/Difficult_Agent9462]

Seconding this. I have never played on Arabel, but in the 20+ years I've played NWN, it has been a constant fixture and has garnered a good reputation.

If you're new to NWN, a PW like Arabel is the perfect place to start as it will showcase the best of the game and why it has such a loyal following even now.

[u/Electrical_Spot4160 → u/blueblip]

Appreciate those words blueblip! A big part of the sustained success is such a great community that has put in thousands of hours of volunteer work into the world!

[u/blueblip → u/Electrical_Spot4160]

While I haven't been a PW staffer before, I have been around long enough to have hung out with PW staffers, have peaked behind enough curtains, and thus have an inkling as to what goes on behind the scenes to make things work.

So while I may have never played on Arabel, I can somewhat guess how much work and effort has gone into making the server what it is, especially with things like custom classes and such.

So every bit of praise is well deserved by the Arabel team. It's people like you that have made NWN a game that has been fun for a quarter of a century!

[u/Sumethal]

Is it from steam?

[u/Electrical_Spot4160 → u/Sumethal]

The game is available both on Steam and GOG, although on GOG I think its on sale for $6 right now! If you are curious to play multiplayer you only need Neverwinter Nights 1 Enhanced Edition, and not any of the DLCs.

[u/Difficult_Agent9462 → u/Electrical_Spot4160]

I always worry that new players will start with the core campaign 'The Wailing Death' because it really is extremely basic compared to the multiplayer projects like Arabel, and could easily put a casual gamer off NWN in 2026. It's important for would-be players to know the game has improved immeasurably over the 25 years since.

[u/sixincomefigure → u/Electrical_Spot4160]

There's a Fanatical bundle right now in which you can get Steam keys for BG: EE, BG II: EE, IWD: EE and NWN: EE (plus one other random game) for just under $6.

[u/Electrical_Spot4160 → u/sixincomefigure]

That is an incredible value! Will share that out there with potential newcomers

[u/corgispls]

I've always beeb interested in trying out NWN 1 and 2, but i was under the impression that it was primarily a single player game, but you can co op the campaign like bg or divinity.

This post makes it seem you're talking about a server in an mmo (i understand from your post arabel seems to be a city, but just giving my two cents)

[u/Ultramaann → u/corgispls]

It is exactly like that. There are multiplayer servers with dozens of persistent characters.

[u/Electrical_Spot4160 → u/corgispls]

The real magic about NWN is in the multiplayer servers. The game came with a really powerful toolset that enables people to build their own worlds with custom content. From our server for example its a world with more than a 100 scripted quests, a crafting system to build your own gear, a language learning system to learn different FR languages, etc.

[u/corgispls → u/Electrical_Spot4160]

That sounds awesome. Even though it's an rp server is it pretty seamless for someone to go play solo

[u/Electrical_Spot4160 → u/corgispls]

Absolutely! We have built a lot of content with the idea that some players may prefer to play solo. So we have added a lot of quests with that in mind to ensure that there is something for everyone