I can jive with people in Waterdeep calling that new continent "Returned Abeir," but not so much the people that actually live there.
I saw that the sister continent when it was in the other dimension was called "Shyr" but not what the continent itself is called.
You should send him a Private Message as I'm sure he would be happy to help you.
So... what is the actual name for the continent referred to as "Returned Abeir?"
I can jive with people in Waterdeep calling that new continent "Returned Abeir," but not so much the people that actually live there.
I saw that the sister continent when it was in the other dimension was called "Shyr" but not what the continent itself is called.
Ed Greenwood was asked what he would call the continent (he did create it, after all), and he answered "Laerakond".
Still, this is information lots of us could use. Why ask only in private?
"Laerakond"? That works, if that's official.
Still, this is information lots of us could use. Why ask only in private?
Well, Ed was asked this over on his Q&A thread on Candlekeep.com. To be fair, it's not private.
I don't know if I'd call it "official"--the question (asked by Faraer) was what Ed would call the continent if it were to be used in a different setting.Furthermore, when all of Faerun get their acts together and eventually steamroll the new continent, they'll probably name it whatever they want.
Makes you wonder if the people of Shyr call Maztica "Returned Toril"...
Whoops, you just wrote my next campaign.
Furthermore, when all of Faerun get their acts together and eventually steamroll the new continent, they'll probably name it whatever they want.
Aheh, yeah. I'd love to see that. Faerun is as big a quagmire as it's ever been--Returner Abeir (or "Laerakond") seems downright cheery in comparison.
I pessimistically doubt it, but it's possible.
Furthermore, when all of Faerun get their acts together and eventually steamroll the new continent, they'll probably name it whatever they want.
-Not necessarily. The Faerûnian colonists called Maztica "Maztica", which was it's native name.
With the release of the Player's Guide, can anyone see whether they have mentioned anything about the continent (being as the book focuses on the peoples and such, they might reflect on their past in the other world)?
I pessimistically doubt it, but it's possible.
Absolutely nothing. Akanul and Tymanther get sections, but the greater Returned Abeir continent gets zero. It's a bit lame.
Absolutely nothing. Akanul and Tymanther get sections, but the greater Returned Abeir continent gets zero. It's a bit lame.
I'm personally not expecting any of my players to be from a land outside of Faerun. So I wouldn't expect it to be in the FRPG.
Well, Ed was asked this over on his Q&A thread on Candlekeep.com. To be fair, it's not private.
Rich told Orconian to ask Ed, and someone else already had, so I posted his answer (which you were kind enough to repeat here). Since Rich IS an official source, and Rich said to ask Ed (because it was Ed's creation), then I think, for now, thats about as official as something can get without being 100% canon.
However, that name was offered if someone wanted to run an 'Abeir' campaign by itself. He also offered “Tarathdeon", if folks wanted a more 'Faerûnian' feel (you could always say the first one is it's Abeirran name, and the second is what Torillians started calling it after it returned).
For the full low-down on what Ed said -
Show
Hi, Faraer! As it happens, the idea you raise is something I’d thought about a time or two during the whirlwind creation of Abeir, given my familiarity with the longtime situation of early D&D DMs (who all had to cobble together campaigns using this Judges Guild module here, that DRAGON article idea there, and so on; even if they wanted to “stick to canon Greyhawk,” they had to wait forever for new official material to appear, when they had players in their laps wanting to adventure RIGHT NOW).
I’d recently done the same thing with CASTLEMOURN, after all: here’s a continent you can use on its own or as part of a larger campaign world (or specifically a planet, or part of a plane of existence).
So, considering “Returned Abeir” as a continent all on its own, I’d first point to its unbalanced state. In short, as currently detailed, it shouldn’t be used “all on its own.”
All of the ports down in its southerly areas need other, offshore lands to trade with, to create the bustling shipping traffic (and piracy, plus waystop island harbors along the shipping lanes where ships can be repaired and take on fresh food and water, and outlaws can flee to) necessary to justify the implied or described wealth, population, and energy of these places.
So we need other continents, or at least an Earthsea-like band or cluster of thousands of inhabited islands (some of them quite large) that have mineral wealth and copious food to sell to the crowded Abeiran ports and Sword River settlements. I’d put these features about three-Abeir-continent-widths or more distant, to east or west (or east-southeast or west-southwest) of the lower third of continental Abeir.
(My original Abeir map, by the way, has been “slimmed down” a bit for publication. I had larger wilderness ‘backlands’ along the east coast of Abeir; more room for monsters, hideouts, lost and overgrown ruins, and bandit-ruled areas. And more mountains wherever there are mountains, too. :})
Just glancing over the published Returned Abeir area writeups, one can see that some basic layers of detail are missing: the general “look” and topography of the land (dominant flora and fauna); the tenor of local life (rural and sparse, or tightly-ruled and law-abiding, with popular interests—music? theater? books? Lots of smithies? Innovation, or reverence for tradition? Family-based, or guilds, or - -?) and details of local imports, exports, and current politics and government. Rorst and Ulark, for example, are barely more than names.
DM freedom is both desired and necessary, but all game users of the Realms need more “commonly known lore” about the current politics and overall nature of the Sword Lands and the major ports.
Even if one emphatically does not want detailed histories for every area (and many of us longtime Realm fans do, because those same histories let us more fully understand local feuds, intrigues, power groups, current power balances and political aims, and the seeds that will spur many future adventures), this lack of the basics I mentioned above is something I’ve got to try to address (and the Wizards website is an ideal venue because it doesn’t have to fit the severely limited wordcounts of trying to fit everything about a given land or area into one page, or a two-page spread, or some multiple thereof, in a printed book). So there’s work to do, no matter how one uses this continent of Abeir, or Returned Abeir, or whatever you prefer to call it.
If using it as part of a new, non-Faerûnian setting, I’d call it “Laerakond” [pronounced “L-AIR-ah-KON-d”].
I settled on the ‘sounds’ of that coined name because they are different from the softer, more Celtic-green-and-pleasant-fantasy-Sherwood ‘feel’ of much of the most loved areas of Faerûn; if you’d prefer to echo that look and feel, call it something like “Tarathdeon,” instead.
Right, let me refer to this newly revealed continent as Laerakond henceforth, to distinguish it from the published version, which works fine as part of a wider Realms where we need to have a place for the Primordials to come from or hold sway, a place where the dragonborn were once slaves to dragons, and a surviving dragon empire or two as an example of what the dragonborn rebelled against.
Separated from the Realms, we might not need Laerakond to perform any or all of those back-story functions, which leaves us facing an imbalance problem: unless those two surviving dragon empires are really on the verge of collapse for some reason (or firmly turned in on themselves, ignoring the rest of Laerakond), how have all of these bustling ports and the Sword Lands and Gontal had any chance at all to develop? If hungry dragons can swoop everywhere, marauding from the skies at any time, what keeps all of these southerly cities and smaller settlements in existence?
So, we need to take how I described those two empires and nudge them a little farther along the paths I hinted they were headed along. Let us have two insane dragon rulers, aging and with their bodies failing them, and make them obsessed with staying alive and as powerful as possible.
The western empire, with the jungles, becomes a realm of undead, with an undead dragon emperor (super-dracolich? unique powers, regardless, so adventurers daring to directly challenge the ruler don’t know precisely what they’re facing, and have to fall back into roleplaying (or at least “preparing for everything and then poking the Great Baddie, ready to flee and try better later, to see what we’re facing”).
This draconic ruler will be endlessly experimenting with creating new forms of undead and augmenting existing undead into warriors and guardians to protect itself and its domain (seeking to fight the ruler? wade through legions of skeletal titans and gigantic bone scorpions, plus flights of flying bone bats with stabbing stinger-tails, or out-and-out undead wyvern and dragon servitors). It will therefore coerce, induce, and otherwise hire necromancers of all sorts (NPC warlocks, illithids and neogi and driders and anything or anyone else the DM thinks fitting) to work for it in crafting such undead, and use dupes, hirelings, and controlled servitor-creatures to plant “treasures” and spread rumors of such riches through the various ports, to lure adventurers and even armed expeditions from human-ruled city-states into its jungles to serve as “fresh meat” for ongoing necromantic experimentations (oh, and bring your beasts of burden, mounts, and aerial steeds, too; they, too, are welcomed as necromantic fodder).
Across the Dragon Sea lies the more infamous dragon empire, with a gigantic living dragon empress seeking ever-greater magical powers rather than a lich-like undead existence. A tyrant, served by lesser dragons who tend herds of edible dragon food (being as the design direction of 4e at the time omitted mention of dragons drawing sustenance from sunlight, water, or anything else other than devoured meat). An empress who has ruled for a long time, and become paranoid yet bored during that time, and so both craves entertainment (watching intruders into her empire from afar, yet also closely watching over and controlling everything in her empire). She seeks a worthy mate, to birth an heir/heiress, yet fears trusting any creature powerful enough to be that worthy mate. She seeks to learn all about, and seize or control, all mighty secular magic (so it can’t be used against her, and so she can use it to make herself ever-more-powerful), and to reach agreements with major deities so their priests won’t work against her.
So fear keeps her within the boundaries of her empire, working through layer upon layer of servitors, and fear of, and obsession about, magic keeps her using such intermediaries (down to the level of well-paid human, tiefling, and orc-half-blood merchants and mercenaries) to reach out into the rest of Laerakond, and beyond, to gather ever more magic—or if she can’t gain it, to destroy it and those who wield it, so as to keep herself safe.
Note that these DM design foci remain the same if one is using Returned Abeir in a Realms D&D campaign or Laerakond/Tarathdeon by itself, in a homebrew FRP setting. There are “design gaps” to be filled somehow, by official lore, unofficial “here’s my alternative” offerings, or the creativity of individual DMs doing what they desire or need to do, for their own campaigns.
If one likes the concept of worlds linked by gates/portals, but not the effects of PCs and NPCs controlling and using gates hidden in castle closets and guild cellars, consider such worlds as Abeir-Toril, Golarion, or my own Darsar (setting of the Band of Four novels), Falconfar, and Castlemourn, all linked by gates that function only from time to time, when conditions are just right, to ships at sea (Moorcock’s “Seas of Fate” concept, from his Elric books). Or the same multiple worlds linked only by those who have the power to “shadow walk” (as in Zelazny’s Amber novels; the Amberites and other powerful beings, such as the nobility of Chaos, who can “add” and “subtract” elements of their surroundings so as to travel through an infinity of “shadows” or planes that echo each other).
However, the root needs remain the same: what sort of campaign do I, “DM Number 42,” want? Set or starting where? If it’s to be anything more than an endless dungeon crawl or Underdark exploration, and Returned Abeir/Laerakond/Tarathdeon is to be involved, I must make some decisions as to which rulers are going to be busy doing (or trying to do) what. Who’s making war on whom, or trying to do damage or effect change without going to war? What movements or social changes or priesthoods or innovations or fads/fashions are on the rise, or declining? Who are the “movers and shakers” (or wannabes) likely to force changes or dramatic events, or hire PC adventurers (or seek to dupe or exterminate PC adventurers who get in their way)?
That’s where I’d focus my design work first. If beginning in the upriver Sword Lands (keeping the large, rich ports as fabled destinations for later), I’d decide on nearby “here’s where I plop down commercial dungeons for my PCs to explore, there’s the place that’ll fit that commercial uber-adventure, here’s where I’ll have my rebel getting ready to attack a ruler, and there’s the ruler he’ll go after” locales. Give the PCs aims, day jobs, and backgrounds, throw in the matter-to-the-players mysteries that every campaign needs, and go for it!
I’d recently done the same thing with CASTLEMOURN, after all: here’s a continent you can use on its own or as part of a larger campaign world (or specifically a planet, or part of a plane of existence).
So, considering “Returned Abeir” as a continent all on its own, I’d first point to its unbalanced state. In short, as currently detailed, it shouldn’t be used “all on its own.”
All of the ports down in its southerly areas need other, offshore lands to trade with, to create the bustling shipping traffic (and piracy, plus waystop island harbors along the shipping lanes where ships can be repaired and take on fresh food and water, and outlaws can flee to) necessary to justify the implied or described wealth, population, and energy of these places.
So we need other continents, or at least an Earthsea-like band or cluster of thousands of inhabited islands (some of them quite large) that have mineral wealth and copious food to sell to the crowded Abeiran ports and Sword River settlements. I’d put these features about three-Abeir-continent-widths or more distant, to east or west (or east-southeast or west-southwest) of the lower third of continental Abeir.
(My original Abeir map, by the way, has been “slimmed down” a bit for publication. I had larger wilderness ‘backlands’ along the east coast of Abeir; more room for monsters, hideouts, lost and overgrown ruins, and bandit-ruled areas. And more mountains wherever there are mountains, too. :})
Just glancing over the published Returned Abeir area writeups, one can see that some basic layers of detail are missing: the general “look” and topography of the land (dominant flora and fauna); the tenor of local life (rural and sparse, or tightly-ruled and law-abiding, with popular interests—music? theater? books? Lots of smithies? Innovation, or reverence for tradition? Family-based, or guilds, or - -?) and details of local imports, exports, and current politics and government. Rorst and Ulark, for example, are barely more than names.
DM freedom is both desired and necessary, but all game users of the Realms need more “commonly known lore” about the current politics and overall nature of the Sword Lands and the major ports.
Even if one emphatically does not want detailed histories for every area (and many of us longtime Realm fans do, because those same histories let us more fully understand local feuds, intrigues, power groups, current power balances and political aims, and the seeds that will spur many future adventures), this lack of the basics I mentioned above is something I’ve got to try to address (and the Wizards website is an ideal venue because it doesn’t have to fit the severely limited wordcounts of trying to fit everything about a given land or area into one page, or a two-page spread, or some multiple thereof, in a printed book). So there’s work to do, no matter how one uses this continent of Abeir, or Returned Abeir, or whatever you prefer to call it.
If using it as part of a new, non-Faerûnian setting, I’d call it “Laerakond” [pronounced “L-AIR-ah-KON-d”].
I settled on the ‘sounds’ of that coined name because they are different from the softer, more Celtic-green-and-pleasant-fantasy-Sherwood ‘feel’ of much of the most loved areas of Faerûn; if you’d prefer to echo that look and feel, call it something like “Tarathdeon,” instead.
Right, let me refer to this newly revealed continent as Laerakond henceforth, to distinguish it from the published version, which works fine as part of a wider Realms where we need to have a place for the Primordials to come from or hold sway, a place where the dragonborn were once slaves to dragons, and a surviving dragon empire or two as an example of what the dragonborn rebelled against.
Separated from the Realms, we might not need Laerakond to perform any or all of those back-story functions, which leaves us facing an imbalance problem: unless those two surviving dragon empires are really on the verge of collapse for some reason (or firmly turned in on themselves, ignoring the rest of Laerakond), how have all of these bustling ports and the Sword Lands and Gontal had any chance at all to develop? If hungry dragons can swoop everywhere, marauding from the skies at any time, what keeps all of these southerly cities and smaller settlements in existence?
So, we need to take how I described those two empires and nudge them a little farther along the paths I hinted they were headed along. Let us have two insane dragon rulers, aging and with their bodies failing them, and make them obsessed with staying alive and as powerful as possible.
The western empire, with the jungles, becomes a realm of undead, with an undead dragon emperor (super-dracolich? unique powers, regardless, so adventurers daring to directly challenge the ruler don’t know precisely what they’re facing, and have to fall back into roleplaying (or at least “preparing for everything and then poking the Great Baddie, ready to flee and try better later, to see what we’re facing”).
This draconic ruler will be endlessly experimenting with creating new forms of undead and augmenting existing undead into warriors and guardians to protect itself and its domain (seeking to fight the ruler? wade through legions of skeletal titans and gigantic bone scorpions, plus flights of flying bone bats with stabbing stinger-tails, or out-and-out undead wyvern and dragon servitors). It will therefore coerce, induce, and otherwise hire necromancers of all sorts (NPC warlocks, illithids and neogi and driders and anything or anyone else the DM thinks fitting) to work for it in crafting such undead, and use dupes, hirelings, and controlled servitor-creatures to plant “treasures” and spread rumors of such riches through the various ports, to lure adventurers and even armed expeditions from human-ruled city-states into its jungles to serve as “fresh meat” for ongoing necromantic experimentations (oh, and bring your beasts of burden, mounts, and aerial steeds, too; they, too, are welcomed as necromantic fodder).
Across the Dragon Sea lies the more infamous dragon empire, with a gigantic living dragon empress seeking ever-greater magical powers rather than a lich-like undead existence. A tyrant, served by lesser dragons who tend herds of edible dragon food (being as the design direction of 4e at the time omitted mention of dragons drawing sustenance from sunlight, water, or anything else other than devoured meat). An empress who has ruled for a long time, and become paranoid yet bored during that time, and so both craves entertainment (watching intruders into her empire from afar, yet also closely watching over and controlling everything in her empire). She seeks a worthy mate, to birth an heir/heiress, yet fears trusting any creature powerful enough to be that worthy mate. She seeks to learn all about, and seize or control, all mighty secular magic (so it can’t be used against her, and so she can use it to make herself ever-more-powerful), and to reach agreements with major deities so their priests won’t work against her.
So fear keeps her within the boundaries of her empire, working through layer upon layer of servitors, and fear of, and obsession about, magic keeps her using such intermediaries (down to the level of well-paid human, tiefling, and orc-half-blood merchants and mercenaries) to reach out into the rest of Laerakond, and beyond, to gather ever more magic—or if she can’t gain it, to destroy it and those who wield it, so as to keep herself safe.
Note that these DM design foci remain the same if one is using Returned Abeir in a Realms D&D campaign or Laerakond/Tarathdeon by itself, in a homebrew FRP setting. There are “design gaps” to be filled somehow, by official lore, unofficial “here’s my alternative” offerings, or the creativity of individual DMs doing what they desire or need to do, for their own campaigns.
If one likes the concept of worlds linked by gates/portals, but not the effects of PCs and NPCs controlling and using gates hidden in castle closets and guild cellars, consider such worlds as Abeir-Toril, Golarion, or my own Darsar (setting of the Band of Four novels), Falconfar, and Castlemourn, all linked by gates that function only from time to time, when conditions are just right, to ships at sea (Moorcock’s “Seas of Fate” concept, from his Elric books). Or the same multiple worlds linked only by those who have the power to “shadow walk” (as in Zelazny’s Amber novels; the Amberites and other powerful beings, such as the nobility of Chaos, who can “add” and “subtract” elements of their surroundings so as to travel through an infinity of “shadows” or planes that echo each other).
However, the root needs remain the same: what sort of campaign do I, “DM Number 42,” want? Set or starting where? If it’s to be anything more than an endless dungeon crawl or Underdark exploration, and Returned Abeir/Laerakond/Tarathdeon is to be involved, I must make some decisions as to which rulers are going to be busy doing (or trying to do) what. Who’s making war on whom, or trying to do damage or effect change without going to war? What movements or social changes or priesthoods or innovations or fads/fashions are on the rise, or declining? Who are the “movers and shakers” (or wannabes) likely to force changes or dramatic events, or hire PC adventurers (or seek to dupe or exterminate PC adventurers who get in their way)?
That’s where I’d focus my design work first. If beginning in the upriver Sword Lands (keeping the large, rich ports as fabled destinations for later), I’d decide on nearby “here’s where I plop down commercial dungeons for my PCs to explore, there’s the place that’ll fit that commercial uber-adventure, here’s where I’ll have my rebel getting ready to attack a ruler, and there’s the ruler he’ll go after” locales. Give the PCs aims, day jobs, and backgrounds, throw in the matter-to-the-players mysteries that every campaign needs, and go for it!
I always feel Ed's take on things are worth repeating - the man has a way of making ANYTHING palatable... even 4e FR.
Absolutely nothing. Akanul and Tymanther get sections, but the greater Returned Abeir continent gets zero. It's a bit lame.
It seems that Returned Abeir is intended to be an adventuring area, rather than a place the players come from. I found that to be a bit disappointing myself (just like I was disappointed that the FRCG had no info on Gontal).
"What purpose, exactly, does returned Abeir serve?"
What can your characters do there that they can't do elsewhere? What races are available there that aren't available elsewhere?
Its a waste of page-count, nothing more. Even Maztica, as bad as it was, offerred DMs something different.
Returned Abeir doesn't even appear to be worth traveling to.
"What purpose, exactly, does returned Abeir serve?"
-This is one of the questions I will be asking Bruce Cordell in my UnCon interview with him. This, and who came up with the idea to make 'Abeir' it's own thing, to begin with.
Which is just plain scarey, since they obviously don't know the answer themselves.
It appears they were just so desperate to do something 'positive' in 4e (creating, rather then destroying), that they jumped onto the 'Maztica-hate' bandwagon and replaced it.
What they forgot to do, it seems, is ask themselves how useful RA is to a DM.
What can your characters do there that they can't do elsewhere?
Adventure deep into the lair of an awakening primordial and to slay him before he can rise and dominate the world.
-Works better than "Returned 'Abeir'".
Agreed. "Returned Abeir" is a real candidate for the dumbest name ever to give to a continent.
Laerakond sounds much better.
Adventure deep into the lair of an awakening primordial and to slay him before he can rise and dominate the world.
There are primordials in Faerûn.
There is also the 'fallen' one in Vassa, named Telos.
Like I said, ANYTHING you want to run in RA, I can place in FR. You'll have to do better then that.
And don't bother mentioning the Dragon-run Kingdoms - we have that in Murghôm and Semphar.
RA is not only poorly-named, but it is completely useless to me. As a sepearte setting, I can see it, but as-is, I find it a waste of time forcing my players to travel there.
Maztica was better.
And thats really saying a lot.
(Cynical? Me? Of course!)
I asked several designers already, both in public forums and in PMs, and I've yet to get a response.
Maybe because they were mandated to make a certain percentage of the setting "new"?
-This is one of the questions I will be asking Bruce Cordell in my UnCon interview with him. This, and who came up with the idea to make 'Abeir' it's own thing, to begin with.
Where will we be able to see it?
Where will we be able to see it?
-UnCon.
There are primordials in Faerûn.
Who? The four "elemental gods" and Bazim-Gorag are in the Elemental Chaos. Ubtao, Dendar, and all those others are not present on Faerun, as far as I can tell.
There is also the 'fallen' one in Vassa, named Telos.
They call him an otherwordly being that fell from the stars, but do we have any official confirmation that he is a primordial? And if he is, do we have details on what an encounter with him would be like, as we do with Rorn the Blazing Fury?
Maztica was better.
A sharp stick in the eye is better than Maztica.
Who? The four "elemental gods" and Bazim-Gorag are in the Elemental Chaos. Ubtao, Dendar, and all those others are not present on Faerun, as far as I can tell.
-Ubtao has/had a following on Faerûn, in Chult, and the aforementioned Akadi, Grumbar, Kossuth and Istishia have followings as well. I believe this is what he meant by having presences on Faerûn.
-UnCon.
I know, I was asking about a link, or maybe a commitment to put it all on YT
-Ubtao has/had a following on Faerûn, in Chult, and the aforementioned Akadi, Grumbar, Kossuth and Istishia have followings as well. I believe this is what he meant by having presences on Faerûn.
Yeah, but I was talking about being able to walk up to the primordial and punch him in the face, which you can do on Returned Abeir because Rorn dwells there as opposed to another plane. Since no primordial actually lives on Faerun, you'd have to go elsewhere (Elemental Chaos; wherever Dendar or Ubtao is) to find them.
-Well, in the same vein, you can go up to a deity in Faerûn and punch them in the face, you can go up to a deity in out there in the planes and punch them in the face...
Careful though, we might lose more of them...