I have to admit, Akanul is the country which most intrigued me when I read the FRCG. The article provides a gorgeous landscape image and map. The NPCs and adventure hooks are interesting. I am really looking forward to reading the rest of this series.
Too bad I can't read it.
Its funny, ya know... the only people who are able to read the new FR articles are people who signed-up for the DDi, and all of them are already 4e fans (else, why bother with an edition-specific add-on?)
Which means there is no way of them having to worry about impartial reviews... only rabid fanbois gushing over all the 'kewlness'.
They can pump-out all the headless Zhents they want now, and the 4elite will just lap it up.
What they need to do is give-away free accounts to people who are still in the 3e camp, so they will be able to make a fair decision about 4e. :D
Because, ya know... those few 'preview' articles we got when the DDi was still Free really didn't help their case... AT ALL.
I would be willing to accept one of these Free accounts, as a favor to them.
HOWEVER
Between the Moonshae and the returned Abeir articles I am finding more and more things to like and/or inspire. I hate to admit but a 4e FR without the shift we've seen would have probably ended up on my shelf after only a flick through.
I'm really liking these Dragon Articles :D
Meanwhile, the article is very interesting... but could really be set in any timeline of the realms. I intent to use this "airspur" and akanul in my 1370DR game. We never knew what was Akanul before (except it was sometime part of Chessenta and other time part of the other part I don't remember). But if you look at the 3rd FR Map, Akanul, Airspur are there. You only have to fit this one in and voila. City of the Air Genasi, that's why its called "Air"spur. You only need to remove any 4e and spellplug references. Don't know if the region was an Ed Greenwood original creation but... its interesting !
I have to admit, I like the pic...
Too bad I can't read it.
Its funny, ya know... the only people who are able to read the new FR articles are people who signed-up for the DDi, and all of them are already 4e fans (else, why bother with an edition-specific add-on?)
Which means there is no way of them having to worry about impartial reviews... only rabid fanbois gushing over all the 'kewlness'.
They can pump-out all the headless Zhents they want now, and the 4elite will just lap it up.
What they need to do is give-away free accounts to peope who are still in the 3e camp, so they will be able to make a fair decision about 4e. :D
Because, ya know... those few 'preview' articles we got when the DDi was still Free really didn't help there case... AT ALL.
I would be willing to accept one of these Free accounts, as a favor to them.
I am signed up but I don't think I'd call myself a rabid fangirl. I do admit my heart did skip a beat because the article was written by Matt Sernett, who'd written the fantastic article on the Domain of Dread, Sunderheart; I love Ravenloft. Add in the fact it was Akanul and I was going to be biased.
Why can't you read it? Or do you only base your knowledge on the Realms on gifts of books and whatever you've read on the 'net? Most of us have had to pay along the way, ya know. ;)
For those of you who have an online subscription to Dragon/Dungeon, the latest Forgotten Realms article "Explore Airspur: Brightest of the Fallen Stars" by Matthew Sernett is up.
Link to the teaser here (will have a link to the .pdf if you have a subscription and are signed in).
I'll give the article a read after posting this, then come back with some thoughts on it.
I have to admit, I like the pic...
Too bad I can't read it.
Its funny, ya know... the only people who are able to read the new FR articles are people who signed-up for the DDi, and all of them are already 4e fans (else, why bother with an edition-specific add-on?)
Which means there is no way of them having to worry about impartial reviews... only rabid fanbois gushing over all the 'kewlness'.
They can pump-out all the headless Zhents they want now, and the 4elite will just lap it up.
What they need to do is give-away free accounts to peope who are still in the 3e camp, so they will be able to make a fair decision about 4e. :D
Because, ya know... those few 'preview' articles we got when the DDi was still Free really didn't help there case... AT ALL.
I would be willing to accept one of these Free accounts, as a favor to them.
I am not a fan of 4E but I signed up anyways. I signed up to get the lore articles they put out. I enjoy reading any FR specific lore regardless of the edition.
The map of the city is pretty cool too.
That said I have already talked about this article in Misc's thread on General but since all the conversation is actually going on here, I have moved it here...
Well, I read it. Having not known much about Airspur pre 4E I didn't really have many preconceptions coming into the article. I enjoyed it a lot, the people as well as the place received a fair amount of attention and that was very good indeed. That said I do think they played up the alien-ness of the place... and I lost count of the number of times some synonym of "beautiful" was used. I was about to contest Airspur being the "most beautiful city in Faerun" until I remembered that Leuthilspar is no longer even on Toril.
All in all good, the series should be interesting... but dear heavens do I wish they would stop focussing so much on the new elements. There is more to the Realms than what was just added!... not least because Akanul (and thus Airspur) was nineteenth (I just checked) most popular choice in BRJ's "What do you want to hear about?" thread.
As for the article, it neither spices up what I had created for Airspur in my own realms, nor does it really fly in the face of anything I came up with off the top of my head. So, all in all, quite nice, but I prefer the Moonshaes one (and would have preferred a different area).
This seems to have been addressed in Realmslore and has a more extensive response so moving my post there...
Indeed much of the conversation flow is already flowing nicely on Realmslore.
If those of you reading this would kindly follow Iluvrien's link....
EDIT: Here is a cleaned up link that will take you to the full Realmslore thread started by Pamela.
Also it looks like the RPGA people get to write adventures set in Airspur. Lucky people, 'cause whether they realise it or not they're writing Realmslore.
EDIT: OK so far I'm just a few pages into this article and I'm already loving it. Totally awesome faction-style setup in the city between the four stewards (of air, earth, fire and water naturally) and the Queen Arathane, with great adventure hook ideas involving all of them.
The ship in the harbor claimed by all four stewards + the queen is absolutely perfect. That's a juicy adventure hook for ambitious characters wanting to win favor and influence in Airspur and Akanûl.
Also it looks like the RPGA people get to write adventures set in Airspur. Lucky people, 'cause whether they realise it or not they're writing Realmslore.
Oh, they realise it. Look at gomez's posts in the last few pages of Brian's Thread. I just wish that those of us who are not part of the RPGA would actually have access to it. That stings. Not least because a few people have said they will look into seeing if it can be released to us and to my knowledge we have heard nothing.
Speaking of BRJ, any word on how that Sembia article is coming along? I remember Rashemen won the contest, but BRJ was told to do one on second-place Sembia. Either would've fine (better than Airspur, personally).
Yes, Sembia gets 5 times more votes than Akanul and yet...
Oh, they realise it. Look at gomez's posts in the last few pages of Brian's Thread.
Hey thank you very much for that link! There's much I've fallen behind on since I've been away.
I just wish that those of us who are not part of the RPGA would actually have access to it. That stings. Not least because a few people have said they will look into seeing if it can be released to us and to my knowledge we have heard nothing.
Very much a "pay to play" setup, eh?
:::::::::::::::::
Hey thank you very much for that link! There's much I've fallen behind on since I've been away.
You're welcome. Welcome back.
Very much a "pay to play" setup, eh?
Pretty much. No money is involved but to get the module your DM has to have signed up, taken the Herald exam and ordered the module... you are only allowed to have a certain number of modules before you start returning results. So... even if you played at a mad-cap pace there seems to be pretty much no way one group could get through all the available modules, and therefore lore.
Hence asking the people writing it to ask the RPGA if we could have the lore excerpts. No answer as of yet.
Of course if you liased with several willing groups you might be able to pull the material from each module they played and slowly work your way through the catalogue but that would still be dependent on their time and energy in sending it to a central source to be synthesized into a larger document as well as the ever present danger of repeats... Yeah. Really.
I do like what was done to the Genasi in 4th Edition. I never liked the 3rd Edition Genasi.:P
Anyway, if I were a DM wanting to work with the adventure hook mentioned in the article about of an impending invasion by the half-orc necromancer Deadtusk through the catacombs that house both the ancient dead of Chessenta as well as new crypts of genasi, I'd definitely tie in the Eminence of Araunt for good measure.
I think it'd be fun for a group of player characters to reveal to the leaders of Akanûl that the power behind Deadtusk is something foul from the realm of Abeir, and something those leaders know all to well. Cool!
Meanwhile, the article is very interesting... but could really be set in any timeline of the realms. I intent to use this "airspur" and akanul in my 1370DR game. We never knew what was Akanul before (except it was sometime part of Chessenta and other time part of the other part I don't remember). But if you look at the 3rd FR Map, Akanul, Airspur are there. You only have to fit this one in and voila. City of the Air Genasi, that's why its called "Air"spur. You only need to remove any 4e and spellplug references. Don't know if the region was an Ed Greenwood original creation but... its interesting !
Airspur dates back to the original Old Empires sourcebook, 1990, by Scott Bennie.
Airspur was probably already called that because it used to be ruled by priests of Bhaelros (Talos): "air spur" = lightning. (Okay, the etymology of the name is my theory, the rest is true, from OE.) The priests were ousted when orc refugees of clan warfare in the Akanapeaks tried to settle there. Now the orcs have integrated with human society, adopted human values, produced half-orcs by love, and they exist at all levels of society, from the half-orc ruler Khrulis down. Still some racism though, but you can expect that.
It's an interesting place, though we never found out enough about it. But it's good for up-ending your players' preconceptions about orcs. I had a Nicodemus of House Skullcleaver, a cowardly Half-Orc Rogue, human father, orc mother, scion of the nobility pressured to join a mercenary force by his father, as an NPC in my Twilight Tomb. In another, a PC was a female Orc Knight, also nobility, who rode a big wolf (a "**** on a bike" really, it wasn't serious. EDIT: censor explanation - lesbian biker.).
Xanos Messarmos, the arrogant and power-hungry Half-Orc Barbarian/Sorcerer henchman from Neverwinter Nights: Shadows Of Undrentide hailed from there.
And the Akanal/Akanul was previously just the farming region of the south-east, around the Akanamere and the Akanapeaks. (I've surmised that Akana was an old state of the Untheric empire, or the older Turami inhabitants). But there's some completely unknown cities or towns down there, just names on a map - you could slap an entire country or two in that area.
EDIT
I didn't realize so much of the history of Airspur was tied to half-orcs and orcs.
Wait, was this mentioned in the article? I'd become interested in Dragon if it is.
In the end though the article is still really good quality. With Cormyr and the Moonshaes article there has been some good stuff published. I hope they give somewhere like Rashemen or similar deserved treatment, as these articles are amazingly useful.
This is another fantastic article that has come far too late IMO. I also have to wonder why the general focus on the newer regions of FR for these articles and not some of the particularly iconic older cities, like Baldurs Gate or Waterdeep.
In the end though the article is still really good quality. With Cormyr and the Moonshaes article there has been some good stuff published. I hope they give somewhere like Rashemen or similar deserved treatment, as these articles are amazingly useful.
I agree. Yet if they did start out with a bunch of the more iconic older cities, just imagine the flame wars that would kick off.
In a way I like that some newer locations are getting some spot light. Now if only the articles would have started in say last December. This will help the anger pass.
Here is some food for thought, what if they did a series of articles on the Wards of Waterdeep? One month you get 10 pages of Downshadow, the next month you get 10 pages of Mistshore. The next month 10 pages of the Castleward.:D
I would EXTEND my subscripton for that.:lightbulb
YMMV.
Wow... way to prove Hasbro right, guys...
There's absolutely no reason for them to change their business model now. You guys have all proven to Hasbro that producing a mere two books per setting is a viable option.
I wonder how much more they can 'cut' from the next edition.. and I'm sure they are wondering the same.
You guys have all proven to Hasbro that producing a mere two books per setting is a viable option.
I think it's a really good idea actually. So long as those two books are good it works pretty well, albeit I still think the FR players guide is a giant waste of time (as the FRCG is just plain superior and the FRPG is very repetitive information wise). Now they have figured out the general concept better I think it will work well. I'm especially hoping they do something like Planescape or Dark Sun in this format. It means they can do a lot more settings over the lifetime of 4E and means the most significant world information is always in a pair of books (as opposed to being spread out over a billion supplements).
So yes, DDI support (which admittedly came overly late for FR and has been of really suspect quality in places) + 2 books per setting is perfectly viable.
He's the art director for D&D at Wizards and has a blog post up that includes a link to Adam Paquette's website (Adam being the artist that did the wide-view piece of Airspur featured in the article).
From Schindehette's blog:
When the project he and I were working on completed, Adam dropped me an email asking if I would be interested in seeing a step-by-step tutorial he put together for the painting he did. Because I love to see peoples process, I couldn't pass up the offer and after I saw what he put together I couldn't wait to share it with the rest of the world. Adam does a great job of running us from initial thumbnails, through lighting, color palette, and so many other aspects of the process.
Just how many people who don't like 4e are paying for the 4e DDi?
Wow... way to prove Hasbro right, guys...
There's absolutely no reason for them to change their business model now. You guys have all proven to Hasbro that producing a mere two books per setting is a viable option.
I wonder how much more they can 'cut' from the next edition.. and I'm sure they are wondering the same.
I figure it's about the same as my old Dragon subscription (ok, maybe not as much, but close) so the cost doesn't bother me too much. I like to read lore and DDI provides this for me. As far as proving something to Hasbro, well that is a losing battle. Their current crop of designers are set on keeping DnD a non-setting specific game so the days of seeing tons of Realms source books are over, DDI or no DDI. If no one subscribed to DDI then they might just consider the game dead and treat it as such. It certainly wouldn't convince them of the error in reducing the number of Realms source books.
If you enjoyed the artwork for the Airspur article as much as I did, then check out Jon Schindehette's blog.
He's the art director for D&D at Wizards and has a blog post up that includes a link to Adam Paquette's website (Adam being the artist that did the wide-view piece of Airspur featured in the article).
From Schindehette's blog:
Nice, thanks for the link.
Having a physical magazine in your hands, though, is lightyears apart from the DDi. I think Misc might even agree with me on that one.
My books are my most prized possession (they are the only thing I took, other then my clothes, when I spilt from my Ex), and I just can't get past not having something SOLID in my hands when I read gaming material.
I guess that just makes me a dinosaur.
But once I do figure out a way to assume control of WOTC...:evillaugh
As I said, the artwork does leave me intrigued...
Having a physical magazine in your hands, though, is lightyears apart from the DDi. I think Misc might even agree with me on that one.
My books are my most prized possession (they are the only thing I took, other then my clothes, when I spilt from my Ex), and I just can't get past not having something SOLID in my hands when I read gaming material.
I guess that just makes me a dinosaur.
Well, I'm no spring chicken. I started my subscription to Dragon back around issue #50. I held onto those things for a long while too. But I have gotten away from paper magazines in general because the space issues just got out of control. Plus I feel that electronic versions of magazines are much more convenient. But that is just me. My point was that Hasbro is gonna do their thing regardless and that the hoards of source books are probably gone for good regardless of whether we subscribe to DDI or not.
More Airspur. Both good and bad I suppose.
Well it looks like pretty much all of August's Dragon based FR output will again be... Airspur. That is apart from "Domains of Eberron and the Forgotten Realm" although I have no idea what that might pertain to... unless it is... setting versions of Divine Domains? Or... I'm not sure. I can't think of another way that Eberron and Forgotten Realms would be linked in an article with that title.
More Airspur. Both good and bad I suppose.
I'm putting my money on Divine Domains. Since they weren't in Divine Power when many people thought they would be, it wouldn't surprise me if an article was done up to satisfy the curious.
As for more Airspur...meh. I like what I've seen, but I'd rather get articles devoted to different areas than a bunch focused on one specific city. I certainly hope to glean tidbits of lore from BRJ's upcoming Moonsea adventure, especially with the Sembia article now on the back burner.
There's absolutely no reason for them to change their business model now. You guys have all proven to Hasbro that producing a mere two books per setting is a viable option.
Well it does save me some money, not buying a Realms sourcebook every 3 months.;)
(snip) Its funny, ya know... the only people who are able to read the new FR articles are people who signed-up for the DDi, and all of them are already 4e fans (else, why bother with an edition-specific add-on?) (snip)
I signed up for DDI despite not liking 4E or the 4E Realms. In due course, the sheer utility of the Compendium and the Character Creator turned me to the "dark side" and now I like 4E and the 4E Realms. It's so much easier to prepare for games now.
I'm also no gushing fanboi, either.
Back to the topic at hand, I really liked the article. Has anyone with the patience to wade through the usual off-topic posts that have clogged this thread given through as to why the Abolethic Sovereignty wanted to conquer Airspur and Akanul?
Back to the topic at hand, I really liked the article. Has anyone with the patience to wade through the usual off-topic posts that have clogged this thread given through as to why the Abolethic Sovereignty wanted to conquer Airspur and Akanul?
I've only been guessing at reasons; I've not read Plague of Spells (or any FR novel for that matter).
The image I get from the FRCG is that the Abolethic Sovereignty regularly pester the coast and islands of the Inner Sea. Their initial attack on Brassune had only been a matter of time. I personally think they might be fascinated with the elemental spires. Movable sources of pure energy with limitless, destructive charges would be really, really useful.
I say 'movable' because of the intriguing fact that they "collected over Airspur". Perhaps it's something like a form of magnetism, with the large number drawing more into their orbit. Perhaps they're drawn by the genasi themselves. Or maybe they have some sort of primitive intelligence? These are just some things I'm toying with myself.
Back to the topic at hand, I really liked the article. Has anyone with the patience to wade through the usual off-topic posts that have clogged this thread given through as to why the Abolethic Sovereignty wanted to conquer Airspur and Akanul?
Simple; Akanul is nearby, and it isn't aberrant. That's enough for the Sovereignty. It's really just a matter of "Eeenie, Meenie, Miney, Obliterate" for the aboleths.
The aboleths consider themselves superior to all other lifeforms, as in the "no matter what we do, we're still going to win" kind of superior. Just because they're incredibly powerful beings doesn't mean they need some convoluted plan of attack; whoever they feel like attacking, gets attacked.