| T O P I C R E V I E W |
| Zeromaru X |
Posted - 23 Jul 2020 : 16:01:17
This came up in another topic, and I think it deserved its own topic.
quote:
Originally posted by sleyvas
Yeah, I don't view Unther as recovered. I view it as a lot of the folk have returned, and they're probably trying to rebuild places. Proably a lot of them that are returned were still slaves, and some genasi that were "slave lords" for Karshimis probably came over as well. I picture the Untheric folk however occupying the coast lands at the southern end, and maybe along the coast heading northward for a bit. I picture the ship of the gods island back, but with no civilization occupying it (personally, I put a rotating retinue of gods in lesser avatar form … ie. sharing a body with a mortal... actually there while in Abeir). But I'm picturing Tymanther as occupying the more interior lands, and maybe even the area that used to be Messemprar.
We know most of the returned Untherans ARE slaves, if not all. IIRC, the only ones with some degree of freedom were the priests of Gilgeam, and I don't know if they were just privileged slaves. That's why there were almost 2000 people willing to desert Gilgeam at the start of The Devil You Know (of these, only almost 1000 succeeded).
Now that I think about it, in the novel, the Untherans began to rebuild Unthalass at the start of 1487 DR, but how much they would have advanced by 1492? I guess they will be still focused in that area, maybe with a new town nearby. I mean, we don't know how much resources they have, besides man-power (a few thousand slaves?). And Unthalass was nearly rubble since it was destroyed by Gilgeam and Tiamat in the Time of Troubles, and then nearly buried during the Spellplague. They have a lot of work to do to...
As for the slave lords... maybe? We know Shyr was not transferred to Toril (Gilgeam's army was outside of it when the transferring happened, and they ended up a few miles outside Unthalass); but perhaps the blue flames would have transferred a few Shyran genasies (?) that were outside the city. Perhaps a whole platoon of city guards or something. Something I know, if they go to Akanűl they will not be welcomed there. The Akanűlans were slaves themselves while in Abeir, and they dislike the slaver culture of Calimshan. The Shyrans would be welcomed there, tho.
As for the coast lands, Unther definitely makes up the coast north of the delta of the Alamber. But the southern coast is definitely Tymantheran territory. Djerad Kethendi is just in the opposite coast of Unthalass, and the Untherans are unable to defeat Vivesh Nannari (Nanna-Sin) as per the SCAG. If you have BRJ proto-map of Tymanther, perhaps Unther currently goes from Unthalass' bay up north to Faol Egurod.
As for Tymanther, the SCAG says the dragonborn expanded around Ash Lake and south of it. Perhaps they surrendered their northern lands?
As for Arush Vayem, it wasn't sent to Abeir, as the novel depicted it in Toril after the transferring of lands.
quote:
Originally posted by sleyvas
Who occupied that area? Is it more dragonborn?
In Abeir? IIRC, this was part of Shyr, or the territory of the Dream Giants. |
| 30 L A T E S T R E P L I E S (Newest First) |
| sleyvas |
Posted - 30 May 2023 : 18:34:49
quote:
Originally posted by Zeromaru X
The new Ed video has unveiled a lot of info that will benefit my campaign. Glolmarra will definitely will be part of my campaign, as I always wondered what was located in the Underdark below the Old Empires. Also, weird like undeads and a super blue dragon!
https://youtu.be/fGDt-VLY1Ms
Thanks... so notes on the "super blue dragon"... name is Meirytraukkrul (Meer for short) and when the Untheric manifestation of Ki (goddess of Nature) lay dying during the orcgate wars, devoured the manifestation's torso. She gained the ability to basically phase through earth and see through it while doing so, summon a half dozen "monsters" every round to fight for her, regenerate 4d4 hit points a round. She also gains some bit of Ki's personality. |
| Zeromaru X |
Posted - 22 May 2023 : 00:29:37
The new Ed video has unveiled a lot of info that will benefit my campaign. Glolmarra will definitely will be part of my campaign, as I always wondered what was located in the Underdark below the Old Empires. Also, weird like undeads and a super blue dragon!
https://youtu.be/fGDt-VLY1Ms |
| Vinzor Burrow |
Posted - 15 Apr 2023 : 23:28:16
quote:
Originally posted by Zeromaru X
So, I was thinking that perhaps the Spellplague may have suspended the inhabitants of Messemprar in stasis, and they were released in the Second Sundering. This way, we can use Messemprar as it was in 3e. Obviously this means I have to work on their current status, their stance on Gilgeam and the Untherans in Unthalass, etc.
As always, ideas are welcome!
Gilgeam did form a pact with Grazzt, so that could easily be seen as evil, regardless of what his intentions were |
| sleyvas |
Posted - 14 Apr 2023 : 21:49:54
quote:
Originally posted by Zeromaru X
I like the idea about Ptah. Actually, we can use both ideas and say that the artifact brought half of the city to the Astral Plane (timeless place, so the untherans there wouldn't have aged). I say half of the city, so the other half are the ruins that canonically existed in the place during 4e. Then, during the SS, Ao brought back the city (that was semi-restored by the untherans during their timeless stance in the Astral). Now, the Messemprar untherans have to deal with a guy they though they had rid off in the past.
Though, it makes me wonder why Ptah would care about the untherans and did nothing about the mulhorandi.
Again, I would say it has to do with the artifact itself and Ptah putting an "anti-theft" ward on it. That being said, it might not have even been just Ptah. If we were to say that the artifact were the Galley of the Gods, then its believed that this artifact was created by an Untheric god Enki who CHOSE to NOT come to Toril with the other Untheric gods (or rather, he chose not to split off a portion of himself into a separate manifestation). So, maybe Enki put a ward on it that prevents the ship from leaving "this reality"... as Abeir is in some other weird phase of the universe. Enki was a god of knowledge, crafts, but also rivers and earth (so he would have been a bit redundant with Ishtar... which may have been why he didn't come). So, throwing it out there, the galley of the gods may have been a joint creation of Enki and Ptah to make a ship which could sail the astral seas.
So, in this idea, maybe the people of Messemprar come back, but with a fervent worship of Ptah and Enki as gods of craftsmanship, wildspace, etc.... and maybe they taught their people in the meantime to not like Gilgeam. The first thoughts I have there would be "and they have a lot of artificers", but I think their crafting should be more of crafting wood, stone, cloth, paper, etc... Maybe some of their people are the wizards that have pet books from one of the 5e sources. I also like them coming back using magic in the form seen in the DM's guild book "Priestess: Ancient World Divine Class"... basically they have to sacrifice to and be near a divine idol of their deities to get their spells, and some learn to animate these idols for really really short spans... and the idols have to be bigger and more extravagant to get back higher level spell slots. I picture something where golems carry horse sized idols on a metal sled following priests around the countryside. Not a requirement mind you, but something to make a change that will definitely be something people may not be used to. The reason why they maybe have to use this innately weaker form of divine magic is because Enki and Ptah both are not officially sanctioned realms gods, and they're using this method to bypass Ao's strictures. Just a thought. |
| Zeromaru X |
Posted - 13 Apr 2023 : 21:26:46
I like the idea about Ptah. Actually, we can use both ideas and say that the artifact brought half of the city to the Astral Plane (timeless place, so the untherans there wouldn't have aged). I say half of the city, so the other half are the ruins that canonically existed in the place during 4e. Then, during the SS, Ao brought back the city (that was semi-restored by the untherans during their timeless stance in the Astral). Now, the Messemprar untherans have to deal with a guy they though they had rid off in the past.
Though, it makes me wonder why Ptah would care about the untherans and did nothing about the mulhorandi. |
| sleyvas |
Posted - 13 Apr 2023 : 14:51:57
I look at it this way... we know SOME things went to the Feywild .... we know SOME things went to Abeir .... so I don't have a problem saying that some places went to other worlds, other planes, etc....
Now, along those lines... I personally also have no problem with sending Messemprar even to other campaign worlds. For instance, in Mystara there is the "hollow world", which brings cultures there and keeps them in a kind of stasis (they still function, but they don't significantly change). They could have gone there (not necessarily great, but its an idea worth a ponder... putting them near the Nithians could be interesting).
Another idea might be that there was a temple of Ptah in the city (and despite some things, there ARE references to Ptah's temples in the realms) and he pulled the city to the original world where the Mulan people were stolen from (which may or may not be earth... I prefer not). This may not even have been of his knowledge and could have been something like a failsafe on an artifact like the ship of the gods which carried the gods to Toril. They wouldn't even necessarily have gone to the original home world... they could have had their bit of land and its surrounding territory transferred into wildspace and hooked onto something like a very large asteroid. Without spelljamming vessels they may have been trapped there for a bit, but you could just as well have them come back with several flying pyramids and turn their little section of the world into people aware of spelljamming.
That all being said, we do know that a good portion of Unther went to Abeir, and we also have some references that the Untheric peoples were being lorded over by the Mulhorandi.... so anything you do should be relatively small scale. |
| Zeromaru X |
Posted - 12 Apr 2023 : 20:14:27
My players want to re-start the campaign after a long hiatus, and they want to visit Messemprar, a place I'm not that familiar with (despite having read The Alabaster Staff). This made start thinking on what to do with Messemprar, as in canon the status of the city is undecided.
I don't like the idea of "it went into Abeir and now has returned as if nothing happened", that's the usual answer the current canon give us. I'd like to see consequences for past history, that's what gives verisimilitude to a fantasy setting.
So, I was thinking that perhaps the Spellplague may have suspended the inhabitants of Messemprar in stasis, and they were released in the Second Sundering. This way, we can use Messemprar as it was in 3e. Obviously this means I have to work on their current status, their stance on Gilgeam and the Untherans in Unthalass, etc.
As always, ideas are welcome! |
| Zeromaru X |
Posted - 07 Apr 2022 : 03:58:17
I was thinking about my next campaign set in the Old Empires (5e, new set of players), and it occurred to me "what if Messemprar, instead of being fully destroyed or sent to Abeir, was sent into the future during the Spellplague?" I mean, that was one of the many consequences of the Spellplague: some stuff got frozen in time until the late 1400s, when they were released from the blue fires. And I guess the Second Sundering must have forzed that "defrosting" in any stuff that wasn't defrosted at that time.
I mean, it's a good idea to have Messemprar without recurring to handwavium, and it allow us to use the older material on the place just as written: for the people of Messemprar, time didn't moved for a century. They were still in 1385 and after blinking they are in 1487. The ruins mentioned in the 4e materials were those places that weren't affected by the Spellplague (not all of the city was frozen in time, but most of it was). It also gives us a foil to Gilgeam and his Untherites. More variety to play an Untheran that is not an escaped slave or a racial supremacist.
Any feedback would be appreciated, as always. |
| Zeromaru X |
Posted - 18 Dec 2021 : 01:19:01
Well, you have to take into account that not all aboleths like the Abolethic Sovereignty. The FRCG even says that the aboleths native to Toril are scared of the ones from the Sovereignty, and some even oppose them. That said, Xxiphu makes more sense in the Glimmersea (the sea just below the Sea of Fallen Stars) than below Unther or Tymanther. This would explain why nobody has seen the monolith in the early 1490s: the Sovereignty is doing something in the Underdark, something that even the drow fear.
Anyways, I've been reading the 4e Underdark sourcebook, and so far, the only place that makes sense without too much work is Hraak Azul, a living fungal forest that moves across the "shallows" region of the 4e Underdark, the equivalent to the Upperdark/Middledark. It's filled with all kinds of monsters, some unique (like occasional dragons), and its main inhabitants are tribes of troglodytes who worship Torog (Ed has said Torog do exist in the Realms, so here we go!). I imagine Hraal Azul will be moving around the whole Old Empires area cyclically, and even around some lands of the Shaar, visiting Tymanther just by the time I need it for my campaign.
I'm also thinking about putting a dwarven citadel below the Smoking Mountains, near the point where I put Ustraternes (another 4e location, this one related to the dragonborn), but I'm not that creative about dwarven stuff... |
| sleyvas |
Posted - 17 Dec 2021 : 13:12:24
quote:
Originally posted by Zeromaru X
Good to know. This gives me an idea of what could be below there. Abolethic and kuo-toan stuff, me thinks.
could make sense if you accept the abolethic sovereignty thing that was just off the coast of Chessenta. Could also link back to the time when the batrachi ruled in this region (as they DID have a civilization there after the Sarrukh). Some have even hinted that the portals of the Imaskari relate back to portals they studied of batrachi origin.
Also, with the land rise and great rift, its always been my story that something slammed into the earth of the shaar and basically shifted the whole region askew. There's a lake in the Great Rift as well, but we don't exactly know HOW it gets continually refilled, but it basically causes the river Shaar to flow out underground and then come out the side of the landrise (This is why I have a river valley where the cliffside city Peleveran was). If the water of the inner sea were going underground, some going to the great rift, going to the river shaar, and eventually ending in the shaar.... might make sense. |
| Zeromaru X |
Posted - 17 Dec 2021 : 05:04:12
Good to know. This gives me an idea of what could be below there. Abolethic and kuo-toan stuff, me thinks. |
| sleyvas |
Posted - 17 Dec 2021 : 02:16:33
quote:
Originally posted by Zeromaru X
I have found nothing, so I guess I'm going to steal stuff from the 4e Underdark book.
There is the area under the capital (its undercity where the lamia were).
Then this from Old empires which I was mentioning before.
The eastern portions of the Riders to the Sky have mostly been cleared, though some bandit and outlaw tribes use them as bases to wage raids on Unther and Chessenta. The western portions, along the edge of the Winding River, are much wilder. There are troll villages, and duergar inhabit underground caverns.
Half-drow who were exiled from Yuirwood long ago are rumored to live among the trolls.
One thing to bear in mind is that lots of the area is very low lying (Unthalass flooded a lot). Therefore digging down more than a few feet might hit water (a problem we have down here where I live, thus noone can have a basement). Granted, that should in theory make the underdark in most places pretty impossible except under mountainous areas, but it might be why there isn't much of an underdark presence in this one. |
| Zeromaru X |
Posted - 17 Dec 2021 : 01:25:51
I have found nothing, so I guess I'm going to steal stuff from the 4e Underdark book. |
| sleyvas |
Posted - 16 Dec 2021 : 23:33:48
quote:
Originally posted by Zeromaru X
Bringing this topic up again, is there anything about the Underdark below the Old Empires area? If you know me (lol), I'm specifically interested in places in the Underdark below Unther/Tymanther.
At this point, I don't care if it's fanmade, as the books I have and the Wiki seem to imply there is nothing worth mentioning in these areas.
Not official, but with drow and trolls in the riders to the sky mountains, I'd definitely put some links there. |
| Zeromaru X |
Posted - 16 Dec 2021 : 02:50:54
Bringing this topic up again, is there anything about the Underdark below the Old Empires area? If you know me (lol), I'm specifically interested in places in the Underdark below Unther/Tymanther.
At this point, I don't care if it's fanmade, as the books I have and the Wiki seem to imply there is nothing worth mentioning in these areas. |
| Zeromaru X |
Posted - 02 Dec 2021 : 18:39:48
You say "established canon", as is such a thing existed nowadays. |
| Wooly Rupert |
Posted - 02 Dec 2021 : 11:08:30
quote:
Originally posted by see
I do not understand how anyone could conclude that the first is somehow less "throwing the doors wide open to do every cheesy thing we've ever seen in a comic book or sci-fi novel, show, or movie" than the second. The Manual of the Planes set up every variant of the parallel universe trope plus de facto time travel. Fizban's just says that any given dragon on Toril is (at least theoretically) linked to a dragon on Oerth.
Because Manual of the Planes was quickly replaced by Planescape, which did not have that idea, and because every other page of the book wasn't pushing the idea hard, and because the design teams for that book and for this book are very, very different.
Manual of the Planes did not take that idea and make it canon for all published D&D worlds, and it did not explicitly lift an idea based on the concept from a mediocre sci-fi movie and not only say it's possible but that it has already happened more than once. And the earlier book was not written by a design team willing to toss aside any other creative views -- including established canon -- for their own views, or by a team willing to insert anachronistic pop culture elements or inside jokes into a setting for the hell of it.
Also, Fizban's does not say this is limited to dragons -- it doesn't address whether or not it extends to other sentient beings at all. It does, however, extend the idea to dungeons.
So why it Fizban's more expansive? Because they make the idea canon for every setting and run hard with it, and the book has already started mining movies and comic books for ideas based on it. |
| see |
Posted - 02 Dec 2021 : 05:36:35
quote:
Originally posted by Wooly Rupert
quote:
Originally posted by see
quote:
Originally posted by Wooly Rupert
but this multiversal thing is far larger in scale than anything they've done before. By opening up the possibility of parallel universes with echoes present in each, they're throwing the doors wide open to do every cheesy thing we've ever seen in a comic book or sci-fi novel, show, or movie.
This isn't opening it up any wider than the infinite number of alternate Prime Material Planes in the 1987 Manual of the Planes (pages 117-119). Which, among other things, explicitly included alternate Primes with a Temporal Factor of 0, which meant "Continents, life, and society similar to home plane. Individuals who resemble companions exist, though their actions, attitudes, and alignments may vary from those of the traveler's Prime plane."
Yeah, but that book didn't explicitly say there are full-on duplicates on each world or that they could kill each other to get stronger. Also, that was a possibility that was never touched on again, while this is saying it's definitive and pushing the concept hard.
Hell of a difference between "there could be something similar, somewhere" and "there are definitely multiples out there, they can be communicated with or worked with, and killing them makes an echo stronger."
In the 1987 Manual of the Planes it was established that there are infinite numbers of alternate Material planes in a "Polyverse", which includes alternate Primes full of close echoes of all the beings of your home plane (every Temporal Factor 0 alternate Prime), plus alternate Primes that were very similar to your world but offset in time (all the alternate Primes with negative Temporal Factors).
In Fizban's, it is established that dragons, and quite specifically only dragons (because of dragons' unique link to the material plane), have a mysterious link to dragons on other prime worlds that they may or may not resemble, whose actions might have an effect on the dragon, and that they might be able to absorb for power.
I do not understand how anyone could conclude that the first is somehow less "throwing the doors wide open to do every cheesy thing we've ever seen in a comic book or sci-fi novel, show, or movie" than the second. The Manual of the Planes set up every variant of the parallel universe trope plus de facto time travel. Fizban's just says that any given dragon on Toril is (at least theoretically) linked to a dragon on Oerth. |
| Wooly Rupert |
Posted - 02 Dec 2021 : 03:40:46
quote:
Originally posted by see
quote:
Originally posted by Wooly Rupert
but this multiversal thing is far larger in scale than anything they've done before. By opening up the possibility of parallel universes with echoes present in each, they're throwing the doors wide open to do every cheesy thing we've ever seen in a comic book or sci-fi novel, show, or movie.
This isn't opening it up any wider than the infinite number of alternate Prime Material Planes in the 1987 Manual of the Planes (pages 117-119). Which, among other things, explicitly included alternate Primes with a Temporal Factor of 0, which meant "Continents, life, and society similar to home plane. Individuals who resemble companions exist, though their actions, attitudes, and alignments may vary from those of the traveler's Prime plane."
Yeah, but that book didn't explicitly say there are full-on duplicates on each world or that they could kill each other to get stronger. Also, that was a possibility that was never touched on again, while this is saying it's definitive and pushing the concept hard.
Hell of a difference between "there could be something similar, somewhere" and "there are definitely multiples out there, they can be communicated with or worked with, and killing them makes an echo stronger." |
| see |
Posted - 01 Dec 2021 : 21:33:54
quote:
Originally posted by Wooly Rupert
but this multiversal thing is far larger in scale than anything they've done before. By opening up the possibility of parallel universes with echoes present in each, they're throwing the doors wide open to do every cheesy thing we've ever seen in a comic book or sci-fi novel, show, or movie.
This isn't opening it up any wider than the infinite number of alternate Prime Material Planes in the 1987 Manual of the Planes (pages 117-119). Which, among other things, explicitly included alternate Primes with a Temporal Factor of 0, which meant "Continents, life, and society similar to home plane. Individuals who resemble companions exist, though their actions, attitudes, and alignments may vary from those of the traveler's Prime plane." |
| Zeromaru X |
Posted - 01 Dec 2021 : 16:44:30
Yeah, but Amun-Ra and Ra-Horakty were revisions made by the priests when certain gods became popular ("Horus and Ra have been the same being all this time, since always. We should revered them as fitting"). There is no a story within the myths that tells us how those mergers happened. |
| sleyvas |
Posted - 01 Dec 2021 : 13:24:46
quote:
Originally posted by Zeromaru X
I've always felt it is nonsensical that, in a multiverse that is supposed to be connected and with a single origin, there do exist worlds with unique versions of characters that exist through the whole multiverse.
And I don't remember Ra being killed in RW Mythology.
He was replaced or merged with Horus in many of the stories. At the same time, in OTHER places he was merged with Amun and became Amun-Ra.
This is why you've heard me talk about the idea that Ra may have left the Mulhorandi (split himself) and taken over At'ar to merge as Amun-ra-at'ar (Amaunator). The whole story of Horus-Re taking over after Ra's death is one that "supposedly" happened here, along with Set and Osiris fighting, Osiris dying because he's "tricked" into going into a coffin, Isis fleeing into some swamps and bringing Osiris back from the dead (thus Osiris' green skin). That being said, the myth on Earth has Horus being Isis' child, born in the swamps after Osiris death (and possibly involving some necrophilia depending on the myth). Horus avenges the death of Osiris and becomes Horus-Re. There were also other Horus'. As with many real world mythologies, the stories are more confusing than the FR ones.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ra
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Osiris_myth
|
| Zeromaru X |
Posted - 01 Dec 2021 : 07:00:56
I've always felt it is nonsensical that, in a multiverse that is supposed to be connected and with a single origin, there do exist worlds with unique versions of characters that exist through the whole multiverse.
And I don't remember Ra being killed in RW Mythology. |
| Gary Dallison |
Posted - 01 Dec 2021 : 06:54:11
Well I view it as another opportunity to fix some things that never should have happened in the realms and introduced more problems than it was worth.
Multispheric gods being the prime. Instead each world has it's own version, similar in name and form (sometimes, not necessarily though - look at iltyr) but entirely independent. These different versions have their own analogue of events that happen elsewhere such as tyr losing his hand to the chaos hound to imitate what happened to Tyr in earth mythology.
Also the mulhorandi and untheric godkings such as Re slain by orcs and the merger with horus. In fact there are an awful lot of examples of FR deities with events that mirror the real world. |
| Zeromaru X |
Posted - 01 Dec 2021 : 05:29:51
quote:
Originally posted by Wooly Rupert
4E started with a huge retcon, and canon continued to be disregarded in strange and inexplicable ways -- like the fact that Myth Nantar was more than 300 feet under water, but take away 50 feet of depth, and now part of it is above the surface. And then there was things like a huge explosion that nuked Halruaa, somehow came back down on the other side of a wall of mountains, destroyed a peninsula and made Chult an island -- but this explosion somehow didn't destroy buildings in Halruaa. They couldn't even maintain continuity within that edition.
The SCAG was actually a decent book. It was built on a broken foundation, but at least it stands well on its own.
As someone who is still playing in the 4e Realms and reads these materials a lot, I can say that the 4e Realms are more coherent than people believe. And yes, there are retcons, but retconing does not necessarily imply incoherence. Some retcons can make more sense than the original stuff.
The thing with the 4e Realms is that they are coherent with the 3e Realms, and this means that they are not necessarily coherent with the 1e/2e Realms.
There is no coherency between the 4e and the 5e Realms. And I don't believe the SCAG is a good book. To say that it was "built in a broken foundation" it means that the book should have taken into account that foundation, but the authors literally disregarded 4e lore when they wrote the SCAG. I can point out to a lot of lore inconsistencies in the SCAG that makes me believe the authors didn't even read the FRCG once.
And there is a reason it is not well regarded by 5e fans and even WotC hates it...
|
| Zeromaru X |
Posted - 01 Dec 2021 : 05:20:52
quote:
Originally posted by George Krashos
Respectfully, that doesn't make much sense. Of course you can use Klauth in your campaign. In your campaign he is called Bob. Why do you need a jury-rigged pan-sphere/plane/world concept to make you feel okay about using elements of the Realms in your campaign?
-- George Krashos
Not all people get the homebrewer stuff. There are people who actually like to play by the book. That's why Ed Greenwood gets a lot of questions in his Twitter, instead of these people finding these answers themselves. So, for these people that the book says "use this to play by the book while modifying stuff" is really helpful.
Also, I want Klauth, not Bob.  |
| Wooly Rupert |
Posted - 01 Dec 2021 : 04:20:10
quote:
Originally posted by Zeromaru X
Not necessarily. I know 3e and 4e did cuestionable stuff to the Realms, but there was a coherent continuity, even if the plot was bad. If you read the sourcebooks you knew why this happened that way and there was an implied story told in the sources, an actual plot you can follow if you wanted to.
In the SCAG stuff happened because reasons, there was no logic behind what stuff happened besides meta explanations (they wanted to recover those players that were playing Pathfinder). Like, they repaired Neverwinter, but how? It just happened because. Or Gilgeam returning (undoing a 2e plot, nonetheless) because... Yes.
And all the other sourcebooks that followed the SCAG just added to this. Specially Mordenkainen's. That one is a bigger offender than Fizban's.
No, 3E was when canon started to be disregarded, and 4E was worse. 3E had things like dwarves suddenly becoming magical, planar structures changing, NPCs changing alignment because designers couldn't be bothered to create new ones, and a host of other changes that if we got any explanation at all (which was rare) it was "it was always like this but no one knew!"
4E started with a huge retcon, and canon continued to be disregarded in strange and inexplicable ways -- like the fact that Myth Nantar was more than 300 feet under water, but take away 50 feet of depth, and now part of it is above the surface. And then there was things like a huge explosion that nuked Halruaa, somehow came back down on the other side of a wall of mountains, destroyed a peninsula and made Chult an island -- but this explosion somehow didn't destroy buildings in Halruaa. They couldn't even maintain continuity within that edition.
The SCAG was actually a decent book. It was built on a broken foundation, but at least it stands well on its own.
And sure, other 5E books have had issues -- I'll never accept beholders just dreaming other beholders into existence! -- but this multiversal thing is far larger in scale than anything they've done before. By opening up the possibility of parallel universes with echoes present in each, they're throwing the doors wide open to do every cheesy thing we've ever seen in a comic book or sci-fi novel, show, or movie.
Given that they've already copied the plot of a mediocre movie built around that echoes concept, and the fact that this team loves dropping in anachronistic pop culture elements like a submarine named for a bit of real-world fiction, we're going to see a lot more of this kind of thing. |
| George Krashos |
Posted - 01 Dec 2021 : 03:50:42
quote:
Originally posted by Zeromaru X
I don't see this echo stuff as a bad idea, actually. It helps to those DMs that like to homebrew. For example, I like Klauth, but I don't play in the Realms. Now, I can use an echo of Klauth in my campaign. Or I want to import Urum-Shar into my Realms game. Well, I can explain she is an echoof the one from 4e's core world.
Respectfully, that doesn't make much sense. Of course you can use Klauth in your campaign. In your campaign he is called Bob. Why do you need a jury-rigged pan-sphere/plane/world concept to make you feel okay about using elements of the Realms in your campaign?
-- George Krashos |
| Zeromaru X |
Posted - 01 Dec 2021 : 03:17:07
Not necessarily. I know 3e and 4e did cuestionable stuff to the Realms, but there was a coherent continuity, even if the plot was bad. If you read the sourcebooks you knew why this happened that way and there was an implied story told in the sources, an actual plot you can follow if you wanted to.
In the SCAG stuff happened because reasons, there was no logic behind what stuff happened besides meta explanations (they wanted to recover those players that were playing Pathfinder). Like, they repaired Neverwinter, but how? It just happened because. Or Gilgeam returning (undoing a 2e plot, nonetheless) because... Yes.
And all the other sourcebooks that followed the SCAG just added to this. Specially Mordenkainen's. That one is a bigger offender than Fizban's. |
| Wooly Rupert |
Posted - 01 Dec 2021 : 02:46:30
quote:
Originally posted by Zeromaru X
The degradation of the Realms as a coherent setting started way before of that, with the SCAG, actually. Even without the echo stuff, the coherence of the setting is already non-existant.
Oh, it goes back to the 3E FRCS, when they first started disregarding canon. But it's been accelerating, and this echo stuff is just going to make it worse. |
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