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Originally posted by Markustay

Here's the thing - Orpur is not there. Or, at least it wasn't there in 4e. That region was blasted and called 'Elfharrow'.

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Originally posted by Markustay


As for the Border Kingdoms - I want more diversity. The 4e team nuked one of the few cool citystates with a non-human ruler (and replaced it with a citystate with a non-human ruler! Are those guys creative OR WHAT?!)

I'm not sure I understand where you're going with this? What citystate did 4e destroy and replace with another non-human ruler? But I certainly don't object to more diversity.

quote:

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Originally posted by Markustay

How about an Orc (or half-orc) ruled settlement? A town of Ogres? (we have one of those nearby in Erlkazar thats 'neutral', not evil). How about a surface drow fortress? A village of man-hating Amazons? (is Ixinos still around?) Maybe even a 'Village of the Damned' - a place where really bad victims of the Spellplague can live in peace (Mongrelmen?)

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I wouldn't be opposed to some of these, however many have been done before (half-orc kingdoms, surface drow and half-drow, orgres, lizardfolk) and I'd worry if it would look far too much like a copy-paste of the other areas. The cool thing about the Border Kingdoms is that while it can still have similar aspects like being run by Orcs and Half-orcs their temperament doesn't need to match. The "kingdoms" were carved out from violence and strength of arms and magic, not peaceful negotiations (well most of them weren't). So the Might Makes Right is certainly a way many of these places would probably work.

Personally I'd love to challenge the outlook and view of so-called "goodly" races. An elven settlement from Elfharrow might be pretty violent towards any non-elves (cue Eldreth Veluuthra involvement). Or maybe more despondent and even cannibalistic savage Halflings (ala Dark Sun ones). This place, even with relatively little action, probably has seen some serious crap over the last century. Most of the Quick Folk have been wiped from the face of Faerūn and I can't assume decedents of their people are all too happy about it.

[quote]Originally posted by Markustay

Anything but another collection of fantasy-ish, human settlements (we can still have some of those - I just want MORE than that). What f the Border kingdoms was one of the few places the Spellplague left mostly alone? Groups may have flocked there from all over, and the place may be some sort of weird, 'melting pot' of cultures and races.

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Originally posted by Diffan

I'm not sure I understand where you're going with this? What citystate did 4e destroy and replace with another non-human ruler? But I certainly don't object to more diversity.

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quote:

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Originally posted by Diffan

Personally I'd love to challenge the outlook and view of so-called "goodly" races. An elven settlement from Elfharrow might be pretty violent towards any non-elves (cue Eldreth Veluuthra involvement). Or maybe more despondent and even cannibalistic savage Halflings (ala Dark Sun ones). This place, even with relatively little action, probably has seen some serious crap over the last century. Most of the Quick Folk have been wiped from the face of Faerūn and I can't assume decedents of their people are all too happy about it.

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Originally posted by Markustay

I'm not saying make it some silly 'every single settlement is a different race' type of thing - just sprinkle a couple in here and there, where it makes sense.

Perhaps give them some sort of 'common enemy' to keep them all from killing each other? I'm meaning to evict the Thri-Kreen from the Shaar (and give it over mostly to Wemics, who I want to move out of everywhere else). Maybe the displaced thr-Kreen are making trouble for some of the outlying settlements? (could be that during the Spellplague, they turned to eating humanoids?) I think even full-blooded orcs would ally against something as alien as that.

quote:

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Originally posted by Diffan

I'm not sure I understand where you're going with this? What citystate did 4e destroy and replace with another non-human ruler? But I certainly don't object to more diversity.

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khrulis (half-orc) of Airspur.

quote:

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Originally posted by Diffan

Personally I'd love to challenge the outlook and view of so-called "goodly" races. An elven settlement from Elfharrow might be pretty violent towards any non-elves (cue Eldreth Veluuthra involvement). Or maybe more despondent and even cannibalistic savage Halflings (ala Dark Sun ones). This place, even with relatively little action, probably has seen some serious crap over the last century. Most of the Quick Folk have been wiped from the face of Faerūn and I can't assume decedents of their people are all too happy about it.

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AGREED

How about a hybrid of Athasian halflings and Eberron Halflings - tiny raptor-riding cannibals! The Shaar will never be the same.

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Originally posted by Gyor

"The Lake of Steam. Far to the south and east of the Sword Coast, the Lake of Steam is more accurately an inland sea, its waters tainted by volcanism and un-drinkable. Around its perimeter is a conglomeration of city-states and minor baronies typified by the shifting domains known as the Border Kingdoms. Here, along the southern shore of the lake, explorers and fortune seekers squander their amassed wealth building cas-tles, founding communities, and drawing loyal vassals to them-only to have all those good works disappear within a generation or two. In some cases, one of these realms is fortunate to be saved from its inevitable de-cline by another group of successful adventurers, who inject enough wealth and wisdom to keep the enterprise going a few more decades."

Lake of Steam and the Border Kingdoms are mentioned in the SCAG.

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Originally posted by Markustay

I'm not saying make it some silly 'every single settlement is a different race' type of thing - just sprinkle a couple in here and there, where it makes sense.

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quote:

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Originally posted by Markustay

Perhaps give them some sort of 'common enemy' to keep them all from killing each other? I'm meaning to evict the Thri-Kreen from the Shaar (and give it over mostly to Wemics, who I want to move out of everywhere else). Maybe the displaced thr-Kreen are making trouble for some of the outlying settlements? (could be that during the Spellplague, they turned to eating humanoids?) I think even full-blooded orcs would ally against something as alien as that.

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quote:

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Originally posted by Markustay

quote:

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Originally posted by Diffan

I'm not sure I understand where you're going with this? What citystate did 4e destroy and replace with another non-human ruler? But I certainly don't object to more diversity.

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khrulis (half-orc) of Airspur.

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quote:

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Originally posted by Markustay

How about a hybrid of Athasian halflings and Eberron Halflings - tiny raptor-riding cannibals! The Shaar will never be the same.

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Originally posted by Diffan

Are there raptors in the Shaar and south of the Lake? If so that'd be awesome.

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Originally posted by Markustay

Yes, there are raptors. Ed even has raptors in the Stonelands. Considering most other 'dinos' aren't around in The North (they are in the Chultan peninsula, which directly connects to The Shaar), I would hazard to guess there is some sort of Portal/Gate somewhere in The Shaar or Chult that is allowing these creatures to keep appearing (in large enough numbers to maintain a stable population) in the Stonelands. Dragons tend to like to hunt in The Shaar, not only because of its nice, wide-open (and uncivilized) spaces, but also because it has large savannah-like herds, which include species of prehistoric herbivores (and naturally, some prehistoric predators - most likely the smaller ones - have also wandered across the jungles of the Chultan 'arm' to hunt that same game). Of course, that doesn't mean the dwarves of The Great Rift don't have to occasionally battle a T-Rex (from their griffon mounts - now THERE is a picture!)

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quote:

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Originally posted by Markustay

Also, by giving them sort of 'alien' common enemy, they don't have to be friends. In fact, every settlement can resent or even hate every other settlement's guts, but they would have to 'keep the peace' (albeit, a fragile one) to keep the 'creatures' from overrunning them all. If you are familiar with the shows Babylon 5, or even the more recent Defiance, you can see that sort of social system in-play. Its actually a fairly common trope ("The enemy of my enemy is my friend"). People don't have to like each other when everyone's survival is at stake.

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Originally posted by Markustay

Lastly, (and here comes the unpopular suggestion) why change anything? Its not like this place being 'frozen in time' (literally or figuratively) would impact the greater Realms at all. I think the designers ignored it for just that reason. It already was developed enough, and nothing major happened there. We can just take everything in Powers of Faerūn and say its all in 1490 (or 1500... whatever). Its like having to re-do something that doesn't actually need re-doing. You could take the lazy approach and simply say all that lore always applied to the 5e Realms (retcon and move on), or, you could say that region went through its own weirdness. Either it moved forward in-time, whole cloth, or it was 'encased' in something that created a time-stop effect (I'm thinking of the Amber from the Fringe TV show).

Or you could combine the two; the amber-like effect (or 'magical stasis field', whatever) only hit certain places (coincidentally, most or all of the ones detailed already), but most of the area was left to the normal Spellplague and century. Thus, you could still use everything already written about the place, and mix-in a few new places just to liven things up. Its a cheap fix, but its easy, and it would save a LOT of work. You can even wrap a story around it - when the Spellplague first struck, a large meteor exploded just above the Border kingdoms, showering the area with strange rocks. These were actually parts of a primordial - Kronos. Many of the settlements gathered bits of the stuff to investigate (it gave off a strong magical aura), but then the cerulean wave washed over the Border Kingdoms, and all the places that had gathered large amounts of the stuff became time-stopped. It wasn't until Ao waved his magic wand and reset the world that the effect was dispelled, and now all those people just 'came back' with no memories of the past century (and only dim recollections of the early Spellplague).

Of course, there is still the matter of all those strange, glowing rocks...

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quote:

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Originally posted by Diffan

quote:

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Originally posted by Gyor

"The Lake of Steam. Far to the south and east of the Sword Coast, the Lake of Steam is more accurately an inland sea, its waters tainted by volcanism and un-drinkable. Around its perimeter is a conglomeration of city-states and minor baronies typified by the shifting domains known as the Border Kingdoms. Here, along the southern shore of the lake, explorers and fortune seekers squander their amassed wealth building cas-tles, founding communities, and drawing loyal vassals to them-only to have all those good works disappear within a generation or two. In some cases, one of these realms is fortunate to be saved from its inevitable de-cline by another group of successful adventurers, who inject enough wealth and wisdom to keep the enterprise going a few more decades."

Lake of Steam and the Border Kingdoms are mentioned in the SCAG.

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Thank you for checking Gyor. The good thing is that, maybe more than any other part of the Realms, the Border Kingdoms have practically remained untouched for the most part since 3rd Edition. On one hand that's pretty awesome because it means there's a pretty straightforward element to draw from, the other hand though, just shows how little time and thought the designers of the past 3 editions into this area aside from Ed.

@ sleyvas that sounds pretty cool. Now does each insect race have traits that we commonly see with the normal insects? I'd picture bee-people to be pretty militaristic and orderly with a queen-bee type Matron in charge of the whole hive and maybe something similar with the ant-people. Scorpion folk sound like ranging nomads.

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quote:

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Originally posted by Markustay

Yes, there are raptors. Ed even has raptors in the Stonelands. Considering most other 'dinos' aren't around in The North (they are in the Chultan peninsula, which directly connects to The Shaar), I would hazard to guess there is some sort of Portal/Gate somewhere in The Shaar or Chult that is allowing these creatures to keep appearing (in large enough numbers to maintain a stable population) in the Stonelands. Dragons tend to like to hunt in The Shaar, not only because of its nice, wide-open (and uncivilized) spaces, but also because it has large savannah-like herds, which include species of prehistoric herbivores (and naturally, some prehistoric predators - most likely the smaller ones - have also wandered across the jungles of the Chultan 'arm' to hunt that same game). Of course, that doesn't mean the dwarves of The Great Rift don't have to occasionally battle a T-Rex (from their griffon mounts - now THERE is a picture!)

Also, by giving them sort of 'alien' common enemy, they don't have to be friends. In fact, every settlement can resent or even hate every other settlement's guts, but they would have to 'keep the peace' (albeit, a fragile one) to keep the 'creatures' from overrunning them all. If you are familiar with the shows Babylon 5, or even the more recent Defiance, you can see that sort of social system in-play. Its actually a fairly common trope ("The enemy of my enemy is my friend"). People don't have to like each other when everyone's survival is at stake.

Lastly, (and here comes the unpopular suggestion) why change anything? Its not like this place being 'frozen in time' (literally or figuratively) would impact the greater Realms at all. I think the designers ignored it for just that reason. It already was developed enough, and nothing major happened there. We can just take everything in Powers of Faerūn and say its all in 1490 (or 1500... whatever). Its like having to re-do something that doesn't actually need re-doing. You could take the lazy approach and simply say all that lore always applied to the 5e Realms (retcon and move on), or, you could say that region went through its own weirdness. Either it moved forward in-time, whole cloth, or it was 'encased' in something that created a time-stop effect (I'm thinking of the Amber from the Fringe TV show).

Or you could combine the two; the amber-like effect (or 'magical stasis field', whatever) only hit certain places (coincidentally, most or all of the ones detailed already), but most of the area was left to the normal Spellplague and century. Thus, you could still use everything already written about the place, and mix-in a few new places just to liven things up. Its a cheap fix, but its easy, and it would save a LOT of work. You can even wrap a story around it - when the Spellplague first struck, a large meteor exploded just above the Border kingdoms, showering the area with strange rocks. These were actually parts of a primordial - Kronos. Many of the settlements gathered bits of the stuff to investigate (it gave off a strong magical aura), but then the cerulean wave washed over the Border Kingdoms, and all the places that had gathered large amounts of the stuff became time-stopped. It wasn't until Ao waved his magic wand and reset the world that the effect was dispelled, and now all those people just 'came back' with no memories of the past century (and only dim recollections of the early Spellplague).

Of course, there is still the matter of all those strange, glowing rocks...

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quote:

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Originally posted by Markustay

What if it was like a normal savanna (very Earth-like) before the Spellplague, and now its reverted to something even more than just pre-3e. What if its gone pre-Sundering? In other words, the animals there would all be more Earth's pliocene. In other words, all Dire versions of normal critter types (and still some dinosaurs to boot).

Then we get primitive, cannibalistic, raptor-riding halflings (Cave-Hin? )

The canyon may actually be back to a cavern (although I believe the official intent is that its the way it was in 1e/2e). The 'powers that be' could have rolled-it-back further then they meant to (so perhaps overpowers aren't as infallible as we are lead to believe). Or there could be a 'time stutter' effect going on (more pieces of the primordial Kronos having fallen all over the Shaar as well?) So we could have stuff that ooked just like it did in 1e/2e, with some stuff 'leftover' from 4e, and even a bunch of stuff 'returned' from periods in time we know nothing about (TRUE 'Dark Elves' in the Forest {Jungle} of Amtar?) Maybe even stuff that dates to the Creatori (Creator Races), like Fey ruins, a Sarrukh fortress, floating 'nests' of aeriee, and Lovecratian Batrachi shapeshifters infesting the waterways - I can see them using 'pools' as gates, even ones as small as a puddle - to pull victims into their underwater 'houses of horror'. A heavy downpour would become a nightmare because of all the potential gates everywhere (Imagine your characters shock when it begins to rain, and people look frightened and start running for their lives?)

Now imagine a newly-formed, small (2' round) puddle next to a character, and claw-like squishy hand reaches out and grabs them by the ankle...

We could have so much fun with the Shining (Savage) South. Move over Chult, you've just lost your crown, 'cause you ain't the only 'primitive' game in town.

EDIT:
And like I've said elsewhere, we no longer have to limit ourselves to 'the past', or just Abeir, we an borrow from ANYWHERE (the WotC/Hasbro owns the rights to). I'd love to see a piece of Mirrodin (MtG) enter the Shaar. The Razor-grass is very cool, and leonine are smexy.

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Originally posted by Markustay

Well, my purpose in making the Shaar VERY interesting - aside from the fact that EVERYTHING in an RPG setting should be interesting - is that no-one is ever going to go to Katashaka. NO-ONE.* Its going to prove as useful as Maztica was, or even Laerakond (Returned Abeir). In fact, thats why I am proposing (for the CandleKanon) we bring Laerakond to a spot right off of Chult (which may even generate some interest in FR groups adventuring in Zakhara - something that never saw traction in earlier editions).

And yeah, I haven't really seen too many settings - aside from ones that were purposefully 'savage/primitive' as a whole - doing an 'early mammals' (I can't for the life of me remember the other word for that era of creatures - a word that saw much more common usage when I was a kid, but fell out of favor in the past decade or so) region.

@Wooly - I'd be down for that. I love me some minotaurs, and I've already said, I plan to do one or two 'centaur realms' moving forward (I'm thinking the two should have some ancient hatred going on, like dwarves and orcs).

EDIT:
As for 'tall grasses' - I love the idea of Cavelings (Dire Hin? ) hiding in them. I picture them using body paints like some African and Aussie tribes, with B&W striping, similar to a zebra's coloration. They'd be nearly invisible in tall grass. And if they are throwback Ghostwise halflings, maybe they are also eerily silent (they communicate through a very primitive form of telepathy/empathy).

Picture a bunch of them running through the grass, like that scene with the raptors from the 1st Jurassic Park movie, and they jump out and take you down, and then they're on top of you... and smile with pointed teeth. Not a good smile, the kind of smile you give a nice filet mignon.

I can picture goblins running and screaming from those things, terrified (and if we go with something like those mirrodin goblins, which are similar to Warmachine/Iron Kingdoms goblins, you'd have a fun reversal of the common fantasy trope).

And I was just reading stuff about prehistoric animals as well - there were two-meter long 'rats' that ate small dinosaurs!

EDITS:
Too bad we couldn't swap the Turmites for the Halruaans. I think both could benefit from that. A nation of dark-skinned mages would be pretty awesome down there for 5e. Then again, dd we really ever have anything about skin coloration in Halruaa? Where've they been for the past century? Even without us finagling the known stuff - 'lost century' and magical chaos - those ex-Netherese have been down there for like 1500 years or so; you'd think their skin pigmentation would have grown darker in that time, being so close to the equator and all (magical 'sunblock' unguents?)


*Please don't take that as any sort of 'dis', its just the hard truth. I wanted to put so much effort into K-T, the Hordelands, and the Utter East back in the day, but then I realized almost no-one would be using any of it. Even Kara-Tur gets almost no love (people like it, but no-one is using it). Maybe not 'no-one' but close enough to that number not to matter. You may be better-ioff converting a bunch of stuff you have and applying it to Chult and The Shaar (which I am psuedo-officially redubbing 'The Savage South').

I really like that list of 'Savage Gods'.

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Originally posted by Diffan

I think the main Factions were: The Harpers, Order of the Gauntlet, Emerald Enclave, Lords' Alliance, and the Zhentarim. I mean when the primary focus of the current Forgotten Realms is largely the Sword Coast, Waterdeep, and maybe a bit of the Western Heartlands these mostly make sense (though the Emerald Enclave is a bit outta place, as they primarily ran out of the Chondalwood near the Vilhon Reach).

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I'd love to see more emphasis on other, more villainous ones like the Eldreth Veluuthra (racist elves, HA!) or Wearers of Purple (and the Cult of the Dragon), and maybe more Red Wizards (hopefully more in-line with pre-4e versions *gasp*).

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Originally posted by KanzenAU

quote:

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Originally posted by Diffan

I think the main Factions were: The Harpers, Order of the Gauntlet, Emerald Enclave, Lords' Alliance, and the Zhentarim. I mean when the primary focus of the current Forgotten Realms is largely the Sword Coast, Waterdeep, and maybe a bit of the Western Heartlands these mostly make sense (though the Emerald Enclave is a bit outta place, as they primarily ran out of the Chondalwood near the Vilhon Reach).

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That is indeed the five factions. I would say though, that the events of The Reaver pave the way for a pretty big shake-up in the Emerald Enclave, and it's not unthinkable to have them reach out to druid circles elsewhere in Faerun in response to the events of the Sundering.

quote:

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I'd love to see more emphasis on other, more villainous ones like the Eldreth Veluuthra (racist elves, HA!) or Wearers of Purple (and the Cult of the Dragon), and maybe more Red Wizards (hopefully more in-line with pre-4e versions *gasp*).

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Although I'd love to see these organizations get more attention too, I think 5 is more than enough for the Adventurer's League program, and since that seems to be the focus of factions I doubt any more will be introduced in the same way the others had.

That said, plenty of room for such organizations in home games. It would be very easy to make these factions and put them up on the DM's Guild, if someone hasn't already done that.

As per the Red Wizards, I think things are slowly building towards a change in Thay. Dead in Thay (republished in TotYP) focused on rebel Red Wizards undermining Szass Tam, and Tyranny of Dragons also showed us a bit of that. They haven't raised their heads since (as far as I'm aware?), though they are set to make an appearance in Tomb of Annihilation. Perhaps we'll find out more then...

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Originally posted by Markustay

Yeah, because of the whole 'factions' thing (which just feels so artificial for The Realms), we now have Red Wizards and worse, Emerald Enclave, EVERYWHERE. On the other hand, I can see that they are at least trying to broaden the 'playing field' (quite literally) by doing so, and also with their new focus on the Chultan peninsula.

They must have realized the same thing I did (or rather, I realized what they did a long time ago) - no-one is going to Maztica, or Katashaka, or even Kara-Tur or Malatra. They probably aren't even going as far as the Hordelands. So now they are taking whatever they have developed for those areas (what little there is) and are applying it closer to home, so instead of shrinking "a basically empty area" (the 3e maps), they've decided to make the south worth playing in, which is GREAT. If Chult, The Shar, the Old Empires, and the Shining South (now the Savage South) can be turned into this sort of 'wild, untamed frontier' (like how The North was meant to be), it could be amazing. I think that's been their plan since the tail-end of 3e - the even mentioned the Tlincalis coming to Faerūn in the GHotR. There is going to be no need to go so far away - the south is far enough. They've even brought the Shou (and Thay, etc) into the Heartlands, making it easier for DMs to use 'the toys'.

As for 'the factions', I just want to clarify: Its not that FR didn't have them. in fact, we are KNOWN for our 'clandestine groups', more than any other setting I can think of. And therein lies the problem. One of the things I would like to have done with a new CKC - and hopefully we can find room for on the CKwiki - is more factions. Bring back all those other groups that have been pushed to the side. I can understand where they are coming from - they can't present people with too many choices in the official material, because that would take design resources away from the ones they have. They can do 'just five' better than they can do 20 (if you are unfamiliar with how it works, your character's goals, and things they get experience for, are affected by all that). What I am thinking is that we add some more, maybe a few at a time (Kraken Society, Knights of the Shield, the Adventurer's Guild, the Fire knives/thieves' Guild, the Rundeen {sp?}, The Unseen, Cult of the Dragon, Scaled Ones, etc., and even Abeirran ones like the Eminence of Araunt), and then we backwards-engineer all of the 5e adventures to include the newer factions (it shouldn't be as hard as it sounds - just add some more plot-hooks, and then some faction-specific goals & rewards). There should even be one or more drow organizations (there were at least two in Cormanthor) - Bregan D'aerthe, etc. Of course, I guess that means there should be other, race=specific groups. We have SO MANY - it could be fun to turn them all into full factions.

EDIT:
Just looked at the factions - I hadn't even realized the Red Wizards AREN'T one.

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Originally posted by sleyvas

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Originally posted by KanzenAU

quote:

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Originally posted by Diffan

I think the main Factions were: The Harpers, Order of the Gauntlet, Emerald Enclave, Lords' Alliance, and the Zhentarim. I mean when the primary focus of the current Forgotten Realms is largely the Sword Coast, Waterdeep, and maybe a bit of the Western Heartlands these mostly make sense (though the Emerald Enclave is a bit outta place, as they primarily ran out of the Chondalwood near the Vilhon Reach).

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That is indeed the five factions. I would say though, that the events of The Reaver pave the way for a pretty big shake-up in the Emerald Enclave, and it's not unthinkable to have them reach out to druid circles elsewhere in Faerun in response to the events of the Sundering.

quote:

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I'd love to see more emphasis on other, more villainous ones like the Eldreth Veluuthra (racist elves, HA!) or Wearers of Purple (and the Cult of the Dragon), and maybe more Red Wizards (hopefully more in-line with pre-4e versions *gasp*).

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Although I'd love to see these organizations get more attention too, I think 5 is more than enough for the Adventurer's League program, and since that seems to be the focus of factions I doubt any more will be introduced in the same way the others had.

That said, plenty of room for such organizations in home games. It would be very easy to make these factions and put them up on the DM's Guild, if someone hasn't already done that.

As per the Red Wizards, I think things are slowly building towards a change in Thay. Dead in Thay (republished in TotYP) focused on rebel Red Wizards undermining Szass Tam, and Tyranny of Dragons also showed us a bit of that. They haven't raised their heads since (as far as I'm aware?), though they are set to make an appearance in Tomb of Annihilation. Perhaps we'll find out more then...

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One of the big problems is that they ruined Thay (and by that I means literally ruined the land). Thay was always a land of plenty when it came to agriculture, thus the need for a lot of slaves. So, even if they have an uprising, it won't help the everday citizens who simply need to eat. Due to all the undead AND the ritual meant to destroy everything, I wouldn't be surprised if the land is infused with negative energy.

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