1) Too high magic. E6, easy fix.
2) The mythology feels fake and antiseptic. I like my mythology to be mythical. A little in depth, but doable. Just gotta decide whether to throw out the overlapping gods (ala 4e) and work out a better mythology, break the unwieldy Faurunian Pantheon into more manageable smaller pantheons, or just throw the whole thing out and start from scratch.
3) Redundant lands. Do we really need Anarauch, Calimshan, and Zakhara? There's more overlap than that, but those are the ones everyone always complains about. Plus, there's some lands I could just do without. Then of course there's the problem of what do I replace these lands with after I'm done with my eraser? Ok, Anarauch's gone. Now what? My first thought was Cimmeria, but I don't think we have a shortage of icy barbarian lands either.
Has anyone else ever addressed these issues on here?
2 - 4E trimmed (slightly) the number of deities, but it was a false trimming, because many weren't offed, but rather devolved into "exarchs" which as a kind of demi-power. Before 4E came out, I personally went through the Faerunian, and trimmed the 60+ down to a manageable 20, but even then, you could still cut. But, yes, the mythology is unconvincing, and everyone would be better off if Nobanian had never existed.
Honestly, the focus on poorly characterized gods acting like giant, moronic NPCs is the absolute worst part of the Realms, but completely changing the pantheon would be difficult. It's easy to make the gods distant and absent in a campaign, but it's hard to avoid in official material, whether it be novels or supplements.
3 - 4E does a good job of taking care of the overlap between Anauroch, Calimshan, and Zakhara. Check it out. It's definitely an improvement over previous fluff (although Zakhara isn't addressed).
Anyway, agree on all points, and have taken steps to correct all points in my games.
I don't use Uber-NPCs, I don't use the gods (aside from their churches and clergy), and I have shifted lands around on my maps (which is how I got started making FR maps in the first place).
I love the Realms, but I'll be the first to admit that it could use some work in the 'believability' dept.
No question, the Realms doesn't have the mythological depth of, to cite the high-water mark, a Glorantha. I don't see 'antiseptic', though, and removing all overlap would move in that formalistic direction, if anything, and away from the feel of real societies.
Re redundant lands, once more we need to distinguish the Realms from things done to the Realms by TSR, in this case the unwise late additions of Zakhara (for purely marketing reasons) and Troy Denning's Bedine, both of which break basic Realms design principles. I don't see why you'd replace Anauroch entirely just in order to lose those pseudo-Bedouin.
I've always viewed FR's pantheon as being more like Mystara's Immortals rather than Greek & Roman styled religions. Viewed that way, it makes sense that there would be dozens of deities - they're kind of like DC & Marvel superheroes in that regard.
As much as I like epic, I don't like the return of Netheril thing. Ancient Netheril was fun to play in 2e, but I like it better as a lost civilization. Calimshan and Zakhara were always boring to me. Anauroch, though, that was cool.
I don't see why you'd replace Anauroch entirely just in order to lose those pseudo-Bedouin.
Because as a DM, I find a couple of thousand miles of sand fairly useless.
Especially when I have both the Calim and Raurin for any 'desert adventures' I'd want to host.
A desert doesn't belong in the middle of the continent - it should be off to the side. The reason it exists is because it is a 'wasteland' created by bad magic... and that could be so much better represented by something besides tons and tons of sand.
Just my opinion, mind you... but I would never use Anauroch the way it is... which is why I prefer Eberron's Mournland (or even a giant 'Wild Magic Zone'... which is basically the same thing).
Note the placement of the Sea of Dust in Greyhawk - basically the same as that of the Raurin - off in a corner, where some long-lost magical empire fell and ruins abound. THAT is how it should be for a regular desert... not central to a campaign. Something 'in the middle' should be a little more exciting.
One of the very few things I think Ed didn't do right, but he was probably developing his world as he went along, and at one point the Anauroch was probably the edge of the map.
I suppose the designers felt the way I do, and thats why we got the return of Shade. Not a bad idea on the surface, but having beings connected to the plane of Shadows living in a bright, sunny desert wasn't very well thought-out, IMHO.
As for the middle-Eastern flavor in the Realms - Ed had it where the entire Shining South had a bit of that flavor, and therefore 'Ottoman Empire' was the correct flavor for Calimshan... before Zakhara was tacked-on.
I like most things about the Realms, but there are three things that bug me. OK, there's probably more but that's all I can think of right now.
1) Too high magic. E6, easy fix.
Didn't 4e fix that problem?
With casters no longer being 35 heads above non-casters power-wise I thought high magic wasn't a problem anymore...2) The mythology feels fake and antiseptic. I like my mythology to be mythical. A little in depth, but doable.
I don't get that one.
The Selune/Shar creation myth, the origin of the Weave, the distant Seldarine/Dark Seldarine war, and so many others, all seem "epic" enough to me, and not fake and antiseptic at all.Keep in mind I never read FR novels, mostly because too many of them feature Gods-as-protagonists, or overly powerful mortals. (Only the Time of troubles stands as the one time I didn't mind deities as mortals, mostly because it was divine punishment for not paying attention to their worshipers.) Authors honestly should have stopped making protagonists out of the gods after Kelemvor ascended, and should have gotten back to what matters about religions in Faerun: the churches and the work they do in the world.
Just gotta decide whether to throw out the overlapping gods (ala 4e) and work out a better mythology, break the unwieldy Faurunian Pantheon into more manageable smaller pantheons, or just throw the whole thing out and start from scratch.
Do what you will. It's your FR. ;)
Personally, the huge pantheon is one of the things that drew me to FR in the first place. So my homebrew ignores 4e's "unipantheon" and keeps most of the gods... kinda. The human gods of the other continents have been slain/absorbed, the Mulhorandi pantheon has been slain(except for Anhur, which has changed a lot), the demihuman pantheons have been expanded, and several dead gods are back... Mind you, I've tinkered with so many of the gods, that I'm no longer entitled to say I'm a fan of this or that edition of the Realms...
Instead I'm just a nutcase, and a fan of my very own homebrew FR. :P
Here's the kicker: much as I love the realms for (among other things) the sheer amount of deities it holds (and the fact my PCs aren't just praying to thin air), I love Eberron for the exact opposite reasons.
Told you I was nuts...
3) Redundant lands. Do we really need Anarauch, Calimshan, and Zakhara? There's more overlap than that, but those are the ones everyone always complains about. Plus, there's some lands I could just do without. Then of course there's the problem of what do I replace these lands with after I'm done with my eraser? Ok, Anarauch's gone. Now what? My first thought was Cimmeria, but I don't think we have a shortage of icy barbarian lands either.
Again from my homebrew:
Anauroch:Netheril's slaughter of the phaerimms and their weather-altering spells means that Anauroch is no longer a desert. The bedine shed their heavy robes and switch to a sedentary lifestyle.
Calimshan: My genasi region(a republic). The calishite nobles who survived the revolution crossed to Zakhara, vowing revenge.
Leaving only Zakhara as my mythical arabia analog.
It's easy if you try
No hell below us
Above us only sky
Imagine all the people
Living for today"
"Imagine there's no countries
It isn't hard to do
Nothing to kill or die for
And no religion too
Imagine all the people
Living life in peace"
Welcome to New Anauroch... land of emptiness and goat herders. :P
1. is redundant,
2. makes no sense too. The "overlapping" gods were the best part of the Realms in 3e.
3. I don't use Zakhara. And I really don't mind Anauroch being thrown out. BTW, I didn't notice the change on the map for a while. :D You could put old Netheril places/cities there. Maybe except for the Narrow Sea.
Honestly, the focus on poorly characterized gods acting like giant, moronic NPCs is the absolute worst part of the Realms, but completely changing the pantheon would be difficult. It's easy to make the gods distant and absent in a campaign, but it's hard to avoid in official material, whether it be novels or supplements.
That's always been my biggest obstacle too, leading me to go to different worlds and homebrew for about the last 6 years or so. But I kind of miss the Realms.
3 - 4E does a good job of taking care of the overlap between Anauroch, Calimshan, and Zakhara. Check it out. It's definitely an improvement over previous fluff (although Zakhara isn't addressed).
I'll have to take a look at it. Don't like 4e, but that doesn't mean I can't rob it blind.
No question, the Realms doesn't have the mythological depth of, to cite the high-water mark, a Glorantha. I don't see 'antiseptic', though, and removing all overlap would move in that formalistic direction, if anything, and away from the feel of real societies.
That's why that's only one of my options. The only way I can see the giant Faerunian pantheon actually working is if it was once many pantheons and they've all kind of merged over time with one another. But for some reason instead of discarding gods after swallowing up smaller/weaker pantheons they kind of just tacked em on. Now everyone's just forgotten where most of the gods came from and the religiosity of the pantheon is pretty much non-existant.
My current options is to throw out all pantheons other than the Faerunian and make that the world religion (while throwing out a bunch of gods), choose a real world pantheon and make that the one "true" religion, tear it down into smaller regional pantheons and just make it so that some regions are more tolerant of "foreign" religions than others (this may actually require adding deities), or doing something really extreme (monotheism/athasian style diety-less campaign/etc.)
At the moment I'm leaning towards tearing it into smaller pantheons. This would allow me to define different regions more culturally, keep deities I don't care for at least "somewhere" in the Realms in case I get a player that really likes the god, and even add real world gods I like (I'm looking at you Mithras.) In order to do this I need to cut down on how much the Realms' priests actually hear from their gods, and E6 really helps in that front. If the gods are constantly giving you the real dirt there's really not as much room for religious strife.
I think my first step is to create the pantheons for all the lost civilizations. Those gods would still survive (for the most part) and be the root of the current religions. The Netherese pantheon is already out there so at least I have a starting point.
I've always viewed FR's pantheon as being more like Mystara's Immortals rather than Greek & Roman styled religions. Viewed that way, it makes sense that there would be dozens of deities - they're kind of like DC & Marvel superheroes in that regard.
That's the problem for me. I don't want super heroes, I want gods.
One of the very few things I think Ed didn't do right, but he was probably developing his world as he went along, and at one point the Anauroch was probably the edge of the map.
That's always been my view on it, and I don't really blame Ed for the problem. People seem to forget that we're all playing in Ed's homebrew campaign world. It's pretty remarkable if you look at it like that. A lot of the problems got a lot bigger when a dozen more cooks decided to throw in their favorite spices into the recipe. We all ended up eating a big pot of ew.
Didn't 4e fix that problem? With casters no longer being 35 heads above non-casters power-wise I thought high magic wasn't a problem anymore...
Not for me it didn't. The main problem for me isn't class balance (at least not from the FR context, class balance is a whole other subject), it's the massive amount of magic in the Realms. Seems like everyone with a little money is crapping into a magical chamber pot. I don't know how thieves guilds exist in FR, considering the massive magical protections that any intelligent wealthy person could easily afford for their homes. If someone doesn't have a dozen magical protections, they probably don't have anything worth stealing.
I don't get that one. The Selune/Shar creation myth, the origin of the Weave, the distant Seldarine/Dark Seldarine war, and so many others, all seem "epic" enough to me, and not fake and antiseptic at all.
I really hate that creation myth. It's just something that was tacked on because they didn't have a creation myth. It doesn't seem genuine to me. Maybe it's just because I really don't care for either of those deities. And I said "anti-septic", not anti-epic.
Personally, the huge pantheon is one of the things that drew me to FR in the first place. So my homebrew ignores 4e's "unipantheon" and keeps most of the gods... kinda. The human gods of the other continents have been slain/absorbed, the Mulhorandi pantheon has been slain(except for Anhur, which has changed a lot), the demihuman pantheons have been expanded, and several dead gods are back... Mind you, I've tinkered with so many of the gods, that I'm no longer entitled to say I'm a fan of this or that edition of the Realms...
Anhur's one I plan on keeping as well. In fact, the whole Egyptian pantheon is still gonna be kicking around in Mulhorand. I even added Hoar. In my world Hoar is going to be what remains of Horus' old self after Ra (prefer that to Re) subsumed much of his personality. Hoar is planning to turn the tables and take his place at the top of the pantheon.
Calimshan: My genasi region(a republic). The calishite nobles who survived the revolution crossed to Zakhara, vowing revenge.
Dude, I like that. Well not the genasi part, but the outcast part. I'm going to reverse it though. Calimshan is ruled by outcast Zakharans. Things are about to get a lot nastier there, think Stygia.
Out of curiosity, if you could (or have) throw anything out of the Realms what would it be? What would 9or have) you add? I'm curious what people think.
Oh yeah, that's not a desert any more. Now what goes there?
Out of curiosity, if you could (or have) throw anything out of the Realms what would it be? What would 9or have) you add? I'm curious what people think.
I'd have added a rampaging blood-thirsty rabbit. Oh, a white one!
I'd have added a rampaging blood-thirsty rabbit. Oh, a white one!
Oh yeah, that's not a desert any more. Now what goes there?
In Anauroch? I look at the map, think thrrough what I know about atmospheric circulation, hydrological cycles, rain shadows, etc., and I deduce it's either arid or desert. If I want people to cross it I can put a few small rivers flowing into the area from the existing mountains and eventually heading north. Settlements exist along those rivers, some of them quite major, possibly united into an "empire". Outside the river valleys there are various groups of nomadic herders, who may or may not have friendly relations with the settled people.
If this gives you the feel of Central Asia in the medieval era, you're on the right lines.
Out of curiosity, if you could (or have) throw anything out of the Realms what would it be? What would 9or have) you add? I'm curious what people think.
I'd probably rip apart the trade network and replace it with something sensible. The implications are rather large though.
Out of curiosity, if you could (or have) throw anything out of the Realms what would it be? What would 9or have) you add? I'm curious what people think.
I've changed most of the Realms, except the bare bones that make FR FR (Harpers, Zhents, Thay, Waterdeep ...). It would be a huge list, added stuff from hundreds works of fantasy and other RPG settings. I wouldn't throw out pretty much anything, just modify it and sometimes relocate. Ok, here's a few examples out many:
- gods - over ninety of them are different, for the most part you can still determine from which canon FR god they originate, divided into gods, demigods and immortals
- planes - threw out the Wheel and the Tree, not considering using the Axis
- world - it's not a planet, more like the Prime version of Sigil, situated between the three inner planes (Derrwom, the World Tree, Scyrnel, the Elemental Core and Sephala, the Helix Eyrie), initially, before the immortals appeared, it was the crucial Blood War battlefield, so the inhabitants have diverse planar blood and numerous unique wild talents
- history - 33 bil. years, the ages divided according to occult, hidden patterns, using maths, astrology, numerology and mythology (proto-indoeuropean for the main planewalking folk that first documented the world and around)
- realms - just a few that were thrown out first, Sespech (replaced by the Five Shires from Mystara and Lurien), parts of the Shining Lands (Scarlet Brotherhood), parts of the Shaar (western coast, plus some Dark Sun elements), Dambrath, Arnaden, Altumbel, Chondath (changed the race), southern Chessenta, most of Anauroch, the Great Dale, the High Moor, most of other continents ...
- Calimshan, Unther and Mulhorand - plan to relocate them far to the southeast, as gateways into the undead continent of Hhubola (Zakhara). So far Calimshan was a land of genasi alchemists opposed by hostile necromantic diaspora (Shoonites, ash genasi ...). Unther is controlled by several PS factions, mostly the Revolutionary League and the Transcendent Order, the society is based on anarchism. Mulhorand is ruled by rilmani bloodlines that defeated the Imaskari.
I can post specific details.
BTW, I didn't notice the change on the map for a while. :D You could put old Netheril places/cities there. Maybe except for the Narrow Sea.
I thought of that, but I did that real-quick (about ten minutes) just as a joke.
After I did it, I thought about putting Netheril back the way it was.
I found a map online a long time ago that showed what the continent would look like if Anauroch was a sea instead, and I thought the concept was kinda cool. The guy basically painted sea over the desert - if I were to do that, I would at least change the outline somewhat and add-in some more terrain.
What would folks want to see there?
-As for the topic, concerning all three points: More lore and information negates* all of it. Wish we had more lore and information.
*As in, matters get cleared up to the point that they wouldn't be seen as 'problematic'. For example, if [Insert Area] had more information to separate it, it wouldn't be too much like [Insert Other Area].
Originally Posted by Yakman
Honestly, the focus on poorly characterized gods acting like giant, moronic NPCs is the absolute worst part of the Realms, but completely changing the pantheon would be difficult. It's easy to make the gods distant and absent in a campaign, but it's hard to avoid in official material, whether it be novels or supplements.
Agreed. Going for the "distant" approach meself.
Don't like 4e, but that doesn't mean I can't rob it blind.
My sentiments exactly. ;)
Not for me it didn't. The main problem for me isn't class balance (at least not from the FR context, class balance is a whole other subject), it's the massive amount of magic in the Realms. Seems like everyone with a little money is crapping into a magical chamber pot. I don't know how thieves guilds exist in FR, considering the massive magical protections that any intelligent wealthy person could easily afford for their homes. If someone doesn't have a dozen magical protections, they probably don't have anything worth stealing.
Ah, gotcha. You might want to go to Candlekeep and ask Ed about that. He's pretty knowledgeable about that sort of thing.
I really hate that creation myth. It's just something that was tacked on because they didn't have a creation myth. It doesn't seem genuine to me. Maybe it's just because I really don't care for either of those deities.
I use that myth more as a "cliff notes" version of what really happened than a literal truth. Considering the age of my Realmspace (It's roughly as old as our Solar System)...
And I said "anti-septic", not anti-epic.
I know. I put epic in quotation marks not to quote you, but to signify my use of the word's old meaning, rather than its more popular usage.
I swear if I hear one more utterance of "Epic Fail"... :P
Anhur's one I plan on keeping as well. In fact, the whole Egyptian pantheon is still gonna be kicking around in Mulhorand. I even added Hoar. In my world Hoar is going to be what remains of Horus' old self after Ra (prefer that to Re) subsumed much of his personality. Hoar is planning to turn the tables and take his place at the top of the pantheon.
I'm still not quite sure what I'm going to do with Mullhorand in my game. I'm not using 4e's Imaskar there(I placed it around the Lake of Mists in the Endless Wastes, calling the region Imathar), and I know the death of their gods has affected them, but aside from that...
The end of their pantheon, however, is not something I just glossed over. It involves a slumbering Sseth and Dendar the Night Serpent, and I'll leave it at that for now... :evillaugh
Dude, I like that. Well not the genasi part, but the outcast part. I'm going to reverse it though. Calimshan is ruled by outcast Zakharans. Things are about to get a lot nastier there, think Stygia.
Neat! :D
To be honest, though, I call it a genasi region, but there's still a big percentage of the population that's human. I'd say roughly 35% Genasi(4e), 30% human, 25%genasi(3e), and 10% other races. The Elemental Chaos bleeds heavily into the region, which is why so many genasi immigrate and are born there.
Re redundant lands, once more we need to distinguish the Realms from things done to the Realms by TSR, in this case the unwise late additions of Zakhara (for purely marketing reasons) and Troy Denning's Bedine, both of which break basic Realms design principles. I don't see why you'd replace Anauroch entirely just in order to lose those pseudo-Bedouin.
what? basic Realms design principles?!!? as if there were any!
what? basic Realms design principles?!!? as if there were any!
-Well, no. When things started out, there was a lot of coherency and such. As things grew, and the aforementioned places began being tacked in wholesale, instead of being edited (to whatever degree) to fit the setting, then that coherency began dissolving. There still is a lot of coherency exhibited "today" (excluding post 4e Spellplague information, a lot of which is lacking just this).
Huh? Of course there are. They've been discussed in great depth here, on REALMS-L and Candlekeep.com, and in numerous interviews and articles and book introductions, over many years.
i would be interested in reading some of these discussions...
- planes - threw out the Wheel and the Tree, not considering using the Axis
Yeah, never been a fan of those either.
- history - 33 bil. years, the ages divided according to occult, hidden patterns, using maths, astrology, numerology and mythology (proto-indoeuropean for the main planewalking folk that first documented the world and around)
Dear god.
- realms - just a few that were thrown out first, Sespech (replaced by the Five Shires from Mystara and Lurien), parts of the Shining Lands (Scarlet Brotherhood), parts of the Shaar (western coast, plus some Dark Sun elements), Dambrath, Arnaden, Altumbel, Chondath (changed the race), southern Chessenta, most of Anauroch, the Great Dale, the High Moor, most of other continents ...
Scarlet Brotherhood, nice. I gotta stick them somewhere too.
-As for the topic, concerning all three points: More lore and information negates* all of it. Wish we had more lore and information.
I can see your point here, though I disagree to an extent. No matter how many details are added, Zakhara, Anauroch, and Calimshan are all going to remain arabic. The only way to really make them different is to remove the sweeping similarities.
-Well, no. When things started out, there was a lot of coherency and such. As things grew, and the aforementioned places began being tacked in wholesale, instead of being edited (to whatever degree) to fit the setting, then that coherency began dissolving. There still is a lot of coherency exhibited "today" (excluding post 4e Spellplague information, a lot of which is lacking just this).
I agree with this completely. Coherency and cohesiveness were always the two biggest problems with Greyhawk. It seems like TSR got that when putting together the FR in the early years. That kind of started to slip away at the end of the TSR era and was completely gone under WotC.
As for Anauroch. The Gorgon (from Birthright) rules over Anauroch, and the desert is inhabited by wandering orc tribes. These orcs venerate him as a diety. The Gorgon was once a second son in the Cormyrean Royalty, physically deformed but still Cormyr's greatest warrior. He attempted to slay his brother and take the crown for himself but was defeated and driven into the desert. To this day he plots to either rule Cormyr or see it driven into the dust. Over the centuries his body has changed to mirror the corruption in his soul and there is very little humanity left in him. He maintains his life through dark sorceries, requiring many sacrifices which are offered to him by his orcish servants.
I'm also thinking of giving Unter a more Athasian feel.
i would be interested in reading some of these discussions...
Yakman, there are hundreds of them. Searching the web for '"ed greenwood" interview' will find some discussion, other interviews are in Dragon and Kobold Quarterly and other magazines, plus The Annotated Elminster, too many Candlekeep posts to list. Several of the early Dragon articles are also very revealing. Numerous threads on what makes the Realms the Realms have gone into all this. Even better is to figure it out for yourself: no one would have any trouble recognizing the consistent tone and underlying (not game) mechanics of the Old Grey Box and the Volo's Guides and the Knights novels, and if you compare FA1 to the Moonshae novels, FR13 to The Parched Sea, Lost Empires of Faerûn to Netheril: Empire of Magic you can see how authors have tried to fold unRealmslike material into the weft of Realmslore.
I agree with this completely. Coherency and cohesiveness were always the two biggest problems with Greyhawk. It seems like TSR got that when putting together the FR in the early years. That kind of started to slip away at the end of the TSR era and was completely gone under WotC.
To get it you need
-- an editorial direction that has tonal consistency as an aim
-- authors skilled at a particular type of shared-world writing
-- people who understand the setting they're writing for.
Needless to say, one or more have often been lacking with both the Realms and the World of Greyhawk under TSR. It's a complex story, and not just a decline: the quality of non-Ed Realms sourcebooks shot up in the mid-90s, for instance, with Steven Schend and Eric Boyd's work.
while Ed Greenwood's Realms have some continuity, the Realms is not entirely his creation anymore--it's the result of dozens of TSR and WotC writers over more than 25 years adding their own thoughts to Ed's work. Because of the unique canon-creation which incorporates novels (even the terrible ones), the 'official' realms is discordant, bizarre, and lumps dissimilar and disjointed political and cultural units next to, and on top of, each other.
So, yes, while I've read some of Mr. Greenwood's writings, I can't agree that there are "Realms Design Principles." The very fact that Anauroch is sitting in the middle of the core of the Realms either is proof that this principle is non-existant or that it allows the random placement of random things pretty much anywhere.
This is why I am a HUGE fan of 4E Realms. A lot of the stuff that doesn't make sense is gone, wiped away by the Spellplague.
sure they wiped away alot of stuff that made no since, but in the process they took away to much. most of which would not of even had to happen if they didnt goof it up at 3.0 and even moreso in 3.5.
so in that regard I'm happy for you that your a big fan of 4e realms.
but you logic is flawed, and in time you may or may not see it.
and just becuase something made no since to you, doesnt meant it didnt to the next person.
but anyway, live long and prosper...
FR didn't make sense after the Time of Troubles. If anything, the WotC material was more consistent than the late TSR material, but it was starting from such a low place with so much that just plain didn't make sense that it is hard to make sense of the setting.
As far as "taking away so much"... it's easy to complain. But what was done was done with actual design principles guiding the major transformations, principally removing the real-world analogues and bringing in 4E races and classes to the setting.
And it was done well. Certainly I would like more information on the "new" Faerun, but I don't miss the old one.
I have no idea what you think doesn't make sense about Anauroch. Its magical genesis and ecology is well described in FR13, Lost Empires and elsewhere.
It was easier just to trash it all then try to fix, I suppose. Too bad they'll never get another 20 years out of it like they did the first time through...
or even ten...
or five...
I can see your point here, though I disagree to an extent. No matter how many details are added, Zakhara, Anauroch, and Calimshan are all going to remain arabic. The only way to really make them different is to remove the sweeping similarities.
-Embellishment can do wonders. Just looking at the real world, Arabian influence has extended long and far, over the years. Tapping local regional cultural stuff, but keeping 'Arabic influence' as the central glue, look at how much the culture of Saudi Arabia, Moorish Spain, the Mughal Empire, the Uyghur Empire, and others. With a fantasy world, where you can completely make everything up, I'd think it'd be a lot easier.
To get it you need
-- an editorial direction that has tonal consistency as an aim
-- authors skilled at a particular type of shared-world writing
-- people who understand the setting they're writing for.
-The bolded two are primary among why things often seem to drift left and right, concerning the Forgotten Realms, during different periods of time, when different people have stewardship over the setting. Certain authors/designers, without naming names, seem unskilled at writing/designing in a shared-world setting. On the complete opposite side of the spectrum, there's Elaine Cunningham, the ultimate gentlewoman, on that matter. Despite being penultimate (and only) source concerning "getting into the heads" of many characters, such as Liriel Baenre, or Arilyn Moonblade, or Danillo Thann, she'd never been willing to share any kind of thoughts of hypothesis' as to what they might be doing, based on their goals/what they like/etc. (things only she knows, realistically), because she does not want to contradict anyone else who utilizes the character(s) in the future.
-Yakman, you're making a lot of broad and unsubstantiated claims, there. I'll just randomly pick one of the many: "FR didn't make sense after the Time of Troubles." Please demonstrate how so.
Basically, the "Threw the baby out with the bath-water', as the old saying goes.
It was easier just to trash it all then try to fix, I suppose. Too bad they'll never get another 20 years out of it like they did the first time through...
or even ten...
or five...
The 4E Realms were allowed to be relevant for about a year. Now that Eberron is out...
We'll see what happens.
Because as a DM, I find a couple of thousand miles of sand fairly useless.
Especially when I have both the Calim and Raurin for any 'desert adventures' I'd want to host.
As for the middle-Eastern flavor in the Realms - Ed had it where the entire Shining South had a bit of that flavor, and therefore 'Ottoman Empire' was the correct flavor for Calimshan... before Zakhara was tacked-on.
Yep. I concur. The Shades were also brought in (IMO) to take the desert out of the center of Faerun.
unless ED Greenwood had plans to bring them back at some point.
the shadow weave, that was allegedly Mr. Baker's idea.
never in the Realms use something designed for another....
POL only works for POL using the quasi setting as a template will cause all to fail......
in the end, the only thing keeping dnd alive will be the novels
If you don't like the bloated and redundant lands and gods and the ridiculous amount of magic and uber-powerful NPC's in FR, have you considered Dragonlance.
The continent of Ansalon is only about the size of Europe and has varied geography and no redundant regions. The Pantheon of gods is much more manageable with no overlapping portfolios. Also there are almost no epic level NPC's and only a limited percentage of the population has access to powerful magic.
It seem like Dragonlance would work much better for what you want in either 3.5, E6, 4E or some hybrid of your own construction.
they were brought back, they wee not really suppose to return, it says some such extent to that in netheril: empire of magic....
-In Netheril: Empire of Magic, the Shade Enclave's fate is unrevealed and unknown. It was a mysterious city to being with, always being surrounded by shadows, but when it completely vanished prior to the casting of Karsus' Avatar*, no one knew what happened, where it went, why, and so on.
*And, of course, this causes a continuity problem when viewed through other sources, two of which state different statements as to what happened to the city, and when it disappeared.
In fact, Netheril (and it's attendent confusion) is probably the best argument to support my statement that the Realms should have gotten a TRUE reboot - restart the continuity fresh from 1357 DR, and re-build the Realms with a solid foundation, rather then piece-meal.
I'll do the map. ;)
Most ot the lore revolving around Netheril and it's fall has been changed over the years, with each edition. In fact, the very first of it began outside of the Forgotten Realms, before they were even purchased from Ed.
-Certain members of the Eldreth Veluuthra appear in the same magazine as well.
In fact, Netheril (and it's attendent confusion) is probably the best argument to support my statement that the Realms should have gotten a TRUE reboot - restart the continuity fresh from 1357 DR, and re-build the Realms with a solid foundation, rather then piece-meal.
-That wouldn't change things. Going back in the Forgotten Realms' continuity of history, to 1,357 DR, everything that was written about Netheril up until 1,357 DR would still stand- and it is that history itself that is laced with confusion, continuity errors, mix-ups, and what have you. If you go back to 1,357 DR AND eliminate products that were written in the real world that were "set after" 1,357 DR, you'd fix some problems, since a lot of stuff is retroactive and backdated. Look at Realms of Shadows, for example. Well, really, most of the anthology books, not to "pick" on that one.
-Yakman, you're making a lot of broad and unsubstantiated claims, there. I'll just randomly pick one of the many: "FR didn't make sense after the Time of Troubles." Please demonstrate how so.
okay...
how about deity rankings? after ToT, deity powers are supposed to increase in relation to the number of their worshippers, right? Talos is listed as a Greater God... yet the source material consistently states that his followers are few. you can go through the deity lists and see more inconsistencies like this.
In fact, the larger presence of deities after ToT is puzzling. Was it not the meddling of deities that caused this to occur, as they attempted to overturn Ao's order? Would not Ao have forced them to live under a particular order? Yet, after ToT, we see deities merrily prancing around Faerun, yet not taking full advantage of their strength--which they should have learned during the ToT. Shoot, Tiamat walks into Unther in full glory and kills Gilgeam right in the middle of his capital. Why isn't stuff like that happening more often? you'd think these big, dumb NPC-gods would love to stomp Waterdeep like a godzilla monster.
Amn. Everything seems hunkydory... cowled wizards, secret councils, distrust of foreigners (except for being a mercantile nation... hmm....)... except for you know that OGRE-MAGI KINGDOM THAT SWALLOWED HALF THE COUNTRY. Why is this not putting the nation into a state of war. Go through Lands of Intrigue. Amn doesn't seem like a country that is fighting a war of survival, but when we read about the events that are occurring, that's exactly what's happening.
Turmish. I love this little island of cultural and racial homogeneity that is oh yeah... right in the middle of everything. Despite the fact that the Chondathans are able to colonize from Icewind Dale all the way to Tethyr and onto the Dales, they can't seem to have any influence on the PEOPLE NEXT DOOR.
The Drow. omg, the Drow. I'll just touch the tip of the Titanic-smashing plot deviceberg that is the Drow. Here they are, super-powered, hyper-organized, murderous sociopaths, in these gigantic cities, plotting the death of the surface elves... and they can't seem to do anything at all. Don't they realize that they outnumber the elves on the surface? And how did that happen? Isn't the Underdark supposed to be hostile to surface life? And why are the surface elves so nonchalant about this? Where are the anti-drow organizations? Why aren't they carrying the fight to their enemies--who frequently come to the surface and engage in mass-murder?
The Zhentarim. Who would join? It's like volunteering to wear a red shirt on a Captain Kirk away-mission. Yet, despite their apparent inability to keep lackeys alive for more than a few paragraphs, they are on the rise? Hello...
The actual situation with deital power is that worship is one influencing factor in it, both before and after the Godswar, so what we have here is a peculiarity in presenting this as a change and an oversimplification in the sources that suggest a 1:1 relationship.
The point about gods acting in Faerûn is a good one, though it's a small part of the big inconsistency of the novels starting to portray the gods as entirely different sorts of entities from how they're explained in Faiths & Avatars and the rest of Realmslore, as if the avatars were the gods themselves. When you get to novel events, there are a lot of about-turns and infelicities like this, for all the sourcebook authors and sometimes the fan loremasters have done to rationalize them.
I don't know what you mean by Turmish failing to influence the people next door.
Drow numbers are tiny compare to the human population of Faerûn, they're not hyper-organized but highly fractious, their raids are annoying but not frequent enough to be more than a nuisance, and the elves, at least prior to recent turnabouts (there's a real inconsistency, because we know that such decisions take centuries), are in the process of departing Faerûn. In the 3E timeline, drow achieved considerable success in invading the sparsely populated Elven Wood (though there are several valid criticisms of how that was handled). It would be some human general who could persuade his troops to go down into the unknown, terrifying, inhospitable hell of the Realms Below, and a very atypical elf who would so squander elven lives. On the other hand, there are indeed adventuring bands that do so. As a general point, this is suspiciously like the 'why doesn't group/character X do anything' canard, which errs in supposing that more than a tiny handful of events in Faerûn see print.
As for the Zhentarim, please don't mistake a gross internet caricature of novel portrayals dictated by the Code of Ethics for Realmslore. For the zillionth time, of course the protagonists of popular fiction come out on top of the antagonists, and this hasn't the least thing to do with the Realms in particular. And risk has never stopped the greedy seeking power: people in our world still start small businesses though most of them fail, to give just one example, and that's in societies with far more paths to self-advancement than Zhentil Keep.
In fact, the very first of it began outside of the Forgotten Realms, before they were even purchased from Ed.
Unless the Dragon Quest lore Paul Jaquays brought into FR5 long predated its first publication, Ed created Netheril well before that.
Ergo, that statement I made is 100% accurate.
No-one mentioned 'creation dates' - I'm talking about actual published material by TSR, and there is quite a bit that pre-dated the purchase of the Realms, not the least of which is a good chunk of the Bloodstone Lands material.
There are TWO Wulgreth's now in FR canon... and both are based on the one created before Netheril was known to anyone outside of Ed's personal circle of friends. Thats merely one example of 'Netherease lore' that pre-dated the 'published Realms'.
Hey Squidyak,
If you don't like the bloated and redundant lands and gods and the ridiculous amount of magic and uber-powerful NPC's in FR, have you considered Dragonlance.
The continent of Ansalon is only about the size of Europe and has varied geography and no redundant regions. The Pantheon of gods is much more manageable with no overlapping portfolios. Also there are almost no epic level NPC's and only a limited percentage of the population has access to powerful magic.
It seem like Dragonlance would work much better for what you want in either 3.5, E6, 4E or some hybrid of your own construction.
I've played and run in Dragonlance, and had fun doing both. There are some areas in which Ansalon is stronger than Faerun, and areas where it's weaker. In fact I often import aspects of Dragonlance into whatever world I'm running. I especially like kender (though it's really easy for a player to lose his kender privileges), Solamnic Knights, and the Wizards of High Sorcery. The mythology is a little better than the Realms', but I'm still not a fan of it. The main thing I like about the Realms is that player can play pretty much any kind of character that existed historically. You can play a mongol, an Ashanti warrior, an arab corsair, an aztec warrior, or pretty much anything else. The breadth of options is its strength. If I was going to narrow the scope down to a smaller land I would run Cerilia, as I feel it was the best put together of all DND settings.
-RW
how about deity rankings? after ToT, deity powers are supposed to increase in relation to the number of their worshippers, right? Talos is listed as a Greater God... yet the source material consistently states that his followers are few. you can go through the deity lists and see more inconsistencies like this.
-You don't seem to understand how a deity gets power:
Po = (Wf x Wb) + P1 + P2...
, where:
Po = Power
Wf = Worshiper Faith
Wb = Worship Base
P1 = Portfolio 1
P2 = Portfolio 2, and so on.
-Deity A who has more followers than Deity B isn't automatically going to be more powerful than Deity B.
In fact, the larger presence of deities after ToT is puzzling. Was it not the meddling of deities that caused this to occur, as they attempted to overturn Ao's order? Would not Ao have forced them to live under a particular order? Yet, after ToT, we see deities merrily prancing around Faerun, yet not taking full advantage of their strength--which they should have learned during the ToT. Shoot, Tiamat walks into Unther in full glory and kills Gilgeam right in the middle of his capital. Why isn't stuff like that happening more often? you'd think these big, dumb NPC-gods would love to stomp Waterdeep like a godzilla monster.
-The Time of Troubles was a "message" to the various deities to "get it together", and worry about their followers, and not themselves. Ao says as much, citing that from that point on, the power a deity could wield would be directly related to the status of their followers (creating the above mathematical formula). The Time of Troubles wasn't, nor was it meant to be, some sort of situation in which the amount of deities that were present and active in the setting was supposed to be chopped down.
Amn. Everything seems hunkydory... cowled wizards, secret councils, distrust of foreigners (except for being a mercantile nation... hmm....)... except for you know that OGRE-MAGI KINGDOM THAT SWALLOWED HALF THE COUNTRY. Why is this not putting the nation into a state of war. Go through Lands of Intrigue. Amn doesn't seem like a country that is fighting a war of survival, but when we read about the events that are occurring, that's exactly what's happening.
-I fail to see the problem. Russia is facing plenty of internal problems in places like Chechnya, which is within Russian political boundaries and sovereignty, but goings on in Moscow go on as normal, as they do in other places around the country.
Turmish. I love this little island of cultural and racial homogeneity that is oh yeah... right in the middle of everything. Despite the fact that the Chondathans are able to colonize from Icewind Dale all the way to Tethyr and onto the Dales, they can't seem to have any influence on the PEOPLE NEXT DOOR.
-I'm not following you. Because they are surrounded by other ethnic groups, they shouldn't have their own, unique culture?
The Drow. omg, the Drow. I'll just touch the tip of the Titanic-smashing plot deviceberg that is the Drow. Here they are, super-powered, hyper-organized, murderous sociopaths, in these gigantic cities, plotting the death of the surface elves... and they can't seem to do anything at all. Don't they realize that they outnumber the elves on the surface? And how did that happen? Isn't the Underdark supposed to be hostile to surface life? And why are the surface elves so nonchalant about this? Where are the anti-drow organizations? Why aren't they carrying the fight to their enemies--who frequently come to the surface and engage in mass-murder?
-The Drow aren't super powered. The Drow are not hyper organized. They are murderous sociopaths. They do not like in gigantic cities. They do plot the deaths of surface Elves. They do plenty of things right. They don't outnumber surface Elves. Surface Elves aren't particularly worried about Drow because the two groups rarely come face to face. Hugo Chavez makes no bones about his dislike of the United States, and how he wants the United States to come crashing down. The United States doesn't have a special military Venezuelan Task Force, because despite his words, the odds that the U.S. and Venezuela come to actual blows are near zilch. And, of course, the Drow are not one cohesive organization, and neither are surface Elves. And, once again, there are political ramifications for everything. Makes plenty of sense to me.
The Zhentarim. Who would join? It's like volunteering to wear a red shirt on a Captain Kirk away-mission. Yet, despite their apparent inability to keep lackeys alive for more than a few paragraphs, they are on the rise? Hello...
-For every Zhentarim member who does something stupid, there's another that does something good. The organization would not be able to exist if everyone was an inept moron who failed at everything they did. Like the Mafia, of which the Zhentarim would certainly fall into that category, those who do good do not get any press, and purposefully so.
-For every Zhentarim member who does something stupid, there's another that does something right. The organization would not be able to exist if everyone was an inept moron who failed at everything they did. Like the Mafia, of which the Zhentarim would certainly fall into that category, those who do right do not get any press, and purposefully so.
There, fixed for ya :P