Post/Author/DateTime	Post
#1 tom_kalbfus Dec 30, 2008 18:09:05	I hear in the 4th Edition the whole Maztica continent was removed from Abeir-Toril and replaced with something else, the premise of this campaign is what happened to those people living on Maztica when this Toril rending event happened? Were they simply killed, or was the whole continent as a result of this cataclism planeshifted over to an entirely new world, that is from their point of view, it was Faerun that was replaced by other landmasses, perhaps a Lost World inhabited by dinosaurs. The people of Helmsport would have to marshal their resources and rebuild the civilization that they lost from across the sea. There are a few wooden sailing ships at their disposal. The Amnites can no longer run roughshod over the Mazticans as they had in the past. There were elements of the Amnite Navy in port at the time the shift occured, but certain things that used to come across the ocean are no longer available now. the world across the sea is a stone age one, this new planet's climate is more tropical than the old Abeir-Toril, the moon in the sky looks different. Tyrannosaurs ply the continent on the other side of the Ocean, which is about 4 weeks travel away by wooden sailing ship, their are also cave people, struggling against the dinosaurs with stone tools and weapons. How do you think the stranded colonists of Helmsport are going to react to their new situation, what measures do you think they might take now that their homeland is no longer around to back them up. Would they try to colonize the new "Old World", will they recruit native Mazticans, build new ships and other things like that. What do you think of this premise? What Forgotten Realms year did the event that removed Maztica from the World occur, and what do you think the Amnites might have achieved in the New World at this time? Would they have founded any additional cities? What if gunpowder actually works in this new world, thus obliviating the need for the more expensive smoke powder? The technology of the Amnites, I think verges on the 15th century or maybe even the early 16th century of our world. Just imagine a whole new planet to explore with unknown continents. The Wizards and clerics have to establish new schools of magic and new churches, perhaps even to discover new gods, or perhaps some gods that were killed in the Forgotten Realms might still be around in some form here. Various Avatars were cut off from their deities when the "great rending" occured, and they had to grow into new gods of this new planet. The Dinosaurs and cavemen inhabit other continents, and the cavemen have very primitive beliefs, what are the new gods going to do about this situation?
#2 kefke_wren Dec 30, 2008 19:43:36	Thre words, Great Old Ones. You just have too good a setup not to go Lovecraftian on the pantheon.
#3 tom_kalbfus Dec 31, 2008 9:31:08	I was thinking of a world made up of a patchwork of discards from other worlds, with the remainder being a Lost World Dinosaurian setting, basically comparible to the Mid to late Cretaceous Earth, lets say 80 million BC to be specific, we then drop Maztica right in the middle of the Pacific Ocean, If you sail west, you hit the west coast of North America. Smaller bits of land from other worlds populated by humans also have turned up, that's where alot of the cavemen have come from. Other civilized pockets also exist, none of them are as large as Maztica however, you might even find the survivors of a lost World War I German submarine plying the waters of this land, and various ships and a few wrecked airplanes that disappeared in the Bermuda triangle, the Island of Atlantis is also to be found in the middle of the narrower Atlantic Ocean, they are a high-magical society with an over abundance of magic users, wizards, and clerics of the Greek Pantheon. The most technologically advanced societies seem to be the fewest in number, so it is largely a medeaval to stone age world, a few renegades lost in the triangle trying to husband their technological artifacts to fight off the dinosaurs and sometimes hostile natives of various intelligent races. There are of course dragons as well, the old fashioned kind which can cast spells and shapechange.
#4 kefke_wren Dec 31, 2008 18:57:13	I would suggest that Atlantis beat least as advanced, if not moreso, in science as in magic. Plato's works clearly described them as having things like indoor plumbing, and other sources attribute even more advancedscienceto the lost continent.
#5 tom_kalbfus Jan 01, 2009 12:49:13	I would suggest that Atlantis beat least as advanced, if not moreso, in science as in magic. Plato's works clearly described them as having things like indoor plumbing, and other sources attribute even more advancedscienceto the lost continent. I kind of imagine the Atlanteans as a kind of Nemesis for the players, they are a creators of monsters, and used to rule the Ancient world they were removed from by keeping secrets and using technological and magical advantage over their neighbors, lording it over them and enslaving some of them, when finally the Gods had enough, and banished their empire. Because the Atlanteans were so paranoid of letting any of their secrets get out so they could be used against them, they took their secrets with them when they were forcibly removed from the Ancient World. That's the back story, and now here they are in a world with dinosaurs and the lost Maztica, and a few marooned shipwrecks from the Bermuda Triangle. The Atlanteans are basically here to cause trouble, expand their empire at the expense of whatever the Amnites and native Mazticans want to accomplish, they provide the sort of intelligent opponent that the dinosaurs do not, and are more sophisticated than the tribes of cavemen the PCs will sometimes encounter. Some Atlanteans are more sympathetic characters, but they are in the minority in the struggle against their grand oppressive civilization.
#6 lord_karsus Jan 07, 2009 12:25:17	I hear in the 4th Edition the whole Maztica continent was removed from Abeir-Toril and replaced with something else, the premise of this campaign is what happened to those people living on Maztica when this Toril rending event happened? -Presumably, because the continent was replaced with a landmass from "Abeir", Maztica is on "Abeir", where the aforementioned continent used to be.
#7 18DELTA Jan 07, 2009 13:45:45	-Maztica is now Returned Toril. :D 18DELTA (CYRIC LOVES THEE) ;)
#8 old_sage Jan 08, 2009 20:00:16	Maztica was transposed with the portion of Returned Abeir in the Realms. It does still exist, but PCs will likely need to venture forth and discover a way to travel to Abeir in order to visit Maztica. Brian's take, which he may plan to explore in some future article, "is that the terra incognita lands *north* of Maztica were the lands replaced."
#9 Einlanzer Jan 09, 2009 11:04:23	I've reconciled a lot of my discontent wth the replacemement of "maztica" with "returned another generic westernstyled fantasyland" with the following probably non-canon idea... Abeir and Toril aren't different planets but are two echoes of the same planet, just like the feywild and the shadowfell. The boundries between the 2 planes have blurred and portions of each one have been transposed (with calamitous events caused by the fusing of the two planes in certain areas). Therefore, maztica still exists in the same place as it was before, but has been shifted to the the plane of Abeir. Same with some of the remnants of other lost nations like Mulhorand and Unther.
#10 Einlanzer Jan 09, 2009 11:05:27	Alternatively, you could just pretend that returned abeir didn't replace maztica but just appeared nearby maztica. I might do that too. Anyway, I know that isn't relevant to your campaign idea but it was just crossing my mind =P
#11 markustay63 Jan 09, 2009 16:00:09	I did a whole "Old West meets FR" style campaign awhile back, by turning the clock ahead a hundred years (what? I told you WotC peaks at my stuff!). It was set in Anchorome, and all I did was turn the Red Steel campaign maps sideways and used the fluff pretty-much as-is (it already had that 'Wild West' feel I wanted, with weird magic as well). Maybe not exactly what you were looking for, but I did imagine how time would have progressed both Maztica (which won it's independence and became it's own empire) and Anchorome, with various colonies on the coast and tons of 'unknown territory' further inland. Watch-out for those Halfing Gunslingers - they're as fast as lightning, and will kill a man just fer lookin' at 'em wrong. Doc Hobbitday was proabably one of the worst... :D
#12 18DELTA Jan 10, 2009 7:36:09	-I'm your Huckleberry. ;) 18DELTA (CYRIC!) :P
#13 suin_bahhar_02 Jan 10, 2009 10:09:52	I liked the way The Hooded One explained it on Candlekeep. The phasing in of Abeir during the Spellplague can be seen as a planar anomaly similar to collision after a cojoined planes drift through eachother. The orbit with wich the two natural worlds in their ethereal plains circle eachother is stable and every few centuries they run close to eachother, but this time the planes cojoined when magic ran wild. And as the ethereal broke down some parts got jumbled to the other natural world on passing eachother. The Maztican detachment of Amn must have had several years of confusion when their ships headed to Amn and back we're coming back with strange stories of the world being changed somehow, replacing their beloved Swordcoast and Amn with a land ruled by dragon empires (or whatever you want to plant on your transposed Abeir). The Helmites are likely to fall into a difficult period with their divine backing lost al of a sudden. I see their dogma would likely still play a large role in the future they will shape for themselves. I suspect they would try to carve out a civilasation on a place thats best defencible on Maztica, trying desperately to find new purpose in defending what they have left. I can imagine them falling back on arcane magic if it still works for them or they might adapt Pluma magic by bending a powerful pluma spirit to view Helms dogma and empower their efforts in his stead.
#14 lord_karsus Jan 12, 2009 12:29:57	-Pluma and Hishna is really what was lost.
#15 suin_bahhar_02 Jan 12, 2009 13:35:53	I thought those were not based on the weave.
#16 lord_karsus Jan 12, 2009 13:55:52	-I am commenting on the general crappiness level of Maztica, and that Pluma and Hishna were really the only interesting things that came from the setting. However, since they are found only in Maztica, or practiced by Mazticans, both magical forms are gone.
#17 suin_bahhar_02 Jan 12, 2009 14:26:34	Not on the "other" Abeir it aint. :P I wonder if the Mazticans would even recognize their fellow Fearunian mulan also lost on Abeir. A new era for the godkings might arise if they adapt. And mazticans might too. The Helmites are doomed if you axe Helm through the Tyr debacle and if they are stranded without support from Amn...
#18 markustay63 Jan 12, 2009 18:55:46	But if my estimations are correct, just about all of Lopango (lower Maztica), along with the northern part that bordered Anchorome, should have remained, which means you can still have Pluma and Hishna (I'd keep it just in Lopango though - the northern area is more like the Pueblo Indians).