5E Forgotten Realms?


4th Edition

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Tacticslion wrote:

...

Might well be all of them. The Mystra I'm reading certainly feels far more chaotic, arrogant, and even slightly cruel compared to the Mystra from other books. Sounds far more like Mystril (though I've never read her in written form - I simply mean she sounds more like I'd imagine her).

Also, wasn't Mystril never a goddess that was worshiped by players? I certainly never recall Netheril as being a playable thing (well... until 4E, but that's different).

...

Wrong :D

3E Realms had "Lost Empires of Faerûn", which offered some info for the ancient realms and even feats making you a worshipper of an ancient deity/aspect of faith/dead god.

So you could serve Borem years after his death.

2E had "Arcane Age", which was focused on plaing in that era.


I'd be tickled to death if they rebooted it back to the Grey Box. I know pretty much every one I've ever played in the Realms with feels the same.

Granted, I know this will never happen, but I CAN DREAM, HAROLD!


magnuskn wrote:
Eh, he already was a woman. The guy goes through phases in his life. ^^

True, true! I was just curious due to the apparent uproar on the candle keep threads.

Zmar wrote:
Tacticslion wrote:

...

Might well be all of them. The Mystra I'm reading certainly feels far more chaotic, arrogant, and even slightly cruel compared to the Mystra from other books. Sounds far more like Mystril (though I've never read her in written form - I simply mean she sounds more like I'd imagine her).

Also, wasn't Mystril never a goddess that was worshiped by players? I certainly never recall Netheril as being a playable thing (well... until 4E, but that's different).

...

Wrong :D

3E Realms had "Lost Empires of Faerûn", which offered some info for the ancient realms and even feats making you a worshipper of an ancient deity/aspect of faith/dead god.

So you could serve Borem years after his death.

2E had "Arcane Age", which was focused on plaing in that era.

Lost Empires specifically called out which deities you could worship, if I recall, though, and neither Borem nor Mystril were there (I admit I could be wrong, though). I'd forgotten about the "Arcane Age" thing, though, yeah. Still, those are pretty far out of left field - neither were really "normal" parts of the play or canon experience, and you literally couldn't effect anything in the Arcane Age (i.e. The rules specifically called out that you were unable to alter significant historical events like the fall of Netheril, or whatever, no matter how successful you were), and you only had a limited time playing in that era ('cause, you know, It's Magic... Time Magic). That means that the only truly significant/lifetime devotion to Mystril offered by the rules was 3.5's Lost Empires (if that feat worked... also worth noting: even if it did, Mystril wasn't given any domains, favored weapons, or the like, so that kind of sucked for would-be clerics, if I recall).

Still, good catch.

Incidentally, the iPad isn't a great forum tool. I wish my comp was working. WHY DOES THIS KEEP HAPPENING TO ME?! For different reasons, even, every time! Gah! Ah well.


I think that for Mystril you'd have the same domains as Mystra later, perhaps without good and with chaos domain. I recall there was a table with dead gods and perhaps there was even old Mystril, but the feat wasn't restricted IMO.

Hah! Here it goes :)


Zmar wrote:

I think that for Mystril you'd have the same domains as Mystra later, perhaps without good and with chaos domain. I recall there was a table with dead gods and perhaps there was even old Mystril, but the feat wasn't restricted IMO.

Hah! Here it goes :)

Very cool. So the feat wasn't restricted, but I just checked, and there was no Mystril on the table (though there was Amaunator, Auppenser, Bhaal, Moander, Myrkul, Tchazzar, and even people like Gilgeam, Ramman, Liera, and Ibrandul. Ibrandul and Tchazzar are especially strange inclusions since Shar literally grants spells in Ibrandul's name, and Tchazzar was, I think, active and returned canonically when the book came out.

Still, Mystril seems like pretty much a blank check here, so it just feels odd that anyone'd "prefer" her (unless they spent significant time playing the Arcane Age, but then that's pretty solid home-game flavor, rather than canon). To each their own, though, I suppose. :)


Well, perhaps with how things went with Mystra and her incarnations they just would have just changed the alignment around, but lef the rest alone. She perhaps just reincarnated just like via some monstrously overcharged Reincarnation spell and thus never died. Her creed is just like Magister's position. A goddess of magic is to pomote the use of magic, creation of spells and magical stuff through and so on and Magister is kind of her direct representative. Both places were held by different personalities, just like presidency over a state, but the office has never been changed significantly, priorities maybe, but the responsibilities and overal goals are the same as the changes could have been banned by Ao, or something like that.

Dark Archive

Marius Johansen wrote:
magnuskn wrote:


Oh, and as for Star Wars, if you haven't already, check out the Star Wars: Legacy comics. Best work of Star Wars fiction of the last decade.
...I might have to change my previous statement to "Yuuzhan Vhong? Don't exist in my galaxy... unless I'm running a Legacy campaign." ;-) I'm not sure if I liked it better than the KotOR comics, and I still hold the Darth Bane trilogy over both of those as far as Star Wars fiction goes, but yeah, I love me some Legacy. :-)

I have a love/hate relationship with the Yuuzhan Vhong. I would have loved them in any other series.

I denied everything that happened post Skywalker/Jade wedding until Legacy. It kills me that I have to accept the one in order to read the other.

But yeah, +1 Legacy is awesomesauce

Liberty's Edge

I dig Drizzt just fine. The guy's just an all around entertaining to visit in faerun when I pick up the books, I would say MORE so now in the newer ones. Truth is it WAS getting a bit stale but now he's living a whole new life for himself. Not tied down or beholden to anything, it's a pretty good trip.

But to be fair I also dig wolverine so ... there is that.


Just curious, but Misery, do you... love company?!

(Sorry! I know you've probably gotten that approximately one million times, but I couldn't resist!)

Also, Drizzt's fine. I actually like the various NPCs - so much so that it frustrates me that they were killed off. Not that they were killed off at all, but that they were killed off so suddenly and completely and arbitrarily. Some had good exits. Others... did not.

Ah, well, that's rehashing old stuff. Here's looking forward to the future!

And as for the Star Wars tangent: eh... I'll accept everything they throw at us. Not that it's any good, mind you, but that it's now part of canon, and oh well. I generally like to work around established canon, and the various things they've introduced (With the noted exception of Aboleth*... I mean, really?!) can make for very interesting setting material. I do admit that it's been handled... disappointingly, however.

* Note: the reason Aboleth is excluded is because... well there's a lot of reasons, but the short of it is that she's redundant (we already have a Dark Side entity: it's called the Dark Side of the Force!), she's singular (and thus not a lot any one campaign or group can do with her), and she's too overwhelmingly powerful.


Just some random thoughts:

Paring down the list of gods was a good move (the only good move). I mean, c'mon, as an example, we have a Goddess of Magic, a God of Mages, and a god/ess for each seperate school of magic. That's unnecessary, and just one example off the top of my head.

But otherwise, everything else that happened to the Realms in the edition change to 4th was just utter travesty. Many loved characters just had to die without their stories told to the end, and many other characters get mindlessly erased/lost in the time jump. But the worst part for me was that WotC decided they were just going to totally retcon canon lore from a Campaign Setting for no other reason than because they were forcing extreme rules changes and weren't creative enough to think of a better way to do it.
So what we end up with is:

1) Karsus' Folly: The goddess of Magic has her divinity siphoned off by some mortal mage who thought he could control it. He couldn't. He destroyed himself in the process and, in order to prevent more total destruction, Mystryl sacrifices herself and, in that brief moment where there is no goddess of magic, there is no magic. None. No magic at all on Aber-Toril. Then, moments later when Mystryl reincarnates into Mystra, the weave is restored and magic is restored along with it. (This is where the precedent was set.)
Then a rule is put into place by Mystra that mortals are no longer allowed to work such powerful magic, and suddenly there is an in-setting explanation on why casters are limited to 9th level spells even in such a super-high magic world where once upon a time, mortals worked magic powerful enough shear off and float mountain tops and build cities on them.

2) Time of Troubles: All the gods, Mystra included, are cast down and are forced to live as incredibly powerful mortals for a time. Knowing that without a god/ess of magic, the weave would unravel, Mystra wisely splits her power into her Chosen followers to hold on to until a time where she can resume her responsibilities over the weave and magic.
Because the power of the goddess of magic still exists, the weave doesn't unravel this time. But because things aren't following the proper status-quo, the weave is weakened and unpredictable, causing dead and wild magic areas, and causing spellcasting to be unpredictable.

3) The Spellplague: Mystra is killed, the weave crumbles, horrible things happen as a result for a while, but eventually, even without a weave, magic persists. But wait, you say: Didn't Karsus' Folly already prove that magic dies without the weave, and the weave dies without Mystra? Yes! Yes we did prove that already, but we here at WoTC/Hasbro have decided we don't care what came before, and we're totally changing the rules, cuz we can do that!

/facepalm

Bottom line here is that regardless of the success or failure of D&D Next, the Realms have suffered such that the only way to fix them would be to retcon the Spellplague and everything that came after it. And we all know that WotC isn't, ever, going to do that.

Sovereign Court RPG Superstar 2009 Top 32, 2010 Top 8

@Neo

Basically I ignore anything after the first book in the Lady Pentient trillogy. (Because I like the idea of the Masked Lady trying to reconcile her two rival factions)


Actually Neo2151, Mystra may still be (sort of) alive. Read Ed Greenwood's most recent series. My favorite part? The very beginning when he takes what was written in the 4E Campaign Setting guide and turns it on it's head, in such a way as to say, "Nope! Make 7-Up-yours* 4E Campaign Setting Guide!" He then proceeds to do more or less that exact thing throughout the rest of the setting. "4E rules? They don't apply to the Ed Greenwood!!" is pretty much how that series continues going (though he does make occasional nods to it). And I love it. It starts with Elminster Must Die.

Matthew: that's seriously one of the most disappointing things they could have possibly done with a fascinating new-ish character. I was so terribly disappointed.

(Also, I, for one, loved the myriads upon myriads of deities and their many interconnected rivalries, alliances, and such - I thought it was all pretty great and made for an interesting and dynamic setting.)

* Look, I'm sorry. It's awful I know. But in addition to the general policy of these boards to not be profane, I, too, have restrictions on the language I allow myself. I don't even drink 7-Up! Leave me alooooooooooooooooooooooone!


Aye, dozens of gods were definitely part of the settings flavour. It sucks to have them removed as it made the setting more generic. Gods' meddling and constant petty struggles were part of the game. If I wanted less gods I could have played in Greyhawk or something.

Grand Lodge

Pathfinder PF Special Edition, Starfinder Roleplaying Game Subscriber
Tacticslion wrote:
Ibrandul and Tchazzar are especially strange inclusions since Shar literally grants spells in Ibrandul's name, and Tchazzar was, I think, active and returned canonically when the book came out.

Ibrandul is still around, but Shar is waging a campaign to infiltrate and sabotage his religion. He's not taking it well. But if he tried to face her off she'd curb stomp him and take his lunch money.


LazarX wrote:
Tacticslion wrote:
Ibrandul and Tchazzar are especially strange inclusions since Shar literally grants spells in Ibrandul's name, and Tchazzar was, I think, active and returned canonically when the book came out.
Ibrandul is still around, but Shar is waging a campaign to infiltrate and sabotage his religion. He's not taking it well. But if he tried to face her off she'd curb stomp him and take his lunch money.

In the Lost Empires of Faerun book, it specifies of Ibrandul...

Ibrandul wrote:
A Calishite deity of darkness, underground places, and stealth, Ibrandul was quite popular among adventurers. During the Time of Troubles, he was killed by Shar, who absorbed much of his portfolio. The Lady of Sorrows even masqueraded as Ibrandul for a time to conceal her dark deed.

Lost Empires of Faerun was definitely as late as 1372 (and Shar was still masquerading has Ibrandul at that time, according to the Campaign Setting), and one entry (the High Forest) follows the timeline all the way up to 1374 (all the others are 1372 or earlier).

So, I mean, it could have been that she was done with the masquerade, but the impression that I got from most of the other books was that she never actually stopped imitating him. Even during the "Sembia: Gateway to the Realms" series, specifically Book VI: Sands of the Soul, which was written as late as 2007 our time (Lost Empires was, apparently, copyright 2005), there were still cults worshiping Ibrandul as Shar manipulated them.

So, I dunno, it seems pretty solidly evidenced that he's gone. Which kind of sucks, but makes sense at the same time.

EDIT: to be clear, in Sands of the Soul, it's made pretty blatant that he's gone and his clerics (which have been having some trouble with spells unless they were slowly corrupted) were being strung along by Shar the whole time.

NOW! If a new author has written something interesting in which he's back, that could be cool, and I'd love to know about it...

Sovereign Court RPG Superstar 2009 Top 32, 2010 Top 8

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@Tacticslion

For me when I read it, it opened up a world of possibilities. How do you reconcile a good but still matriarchal faith with an evil patriarchal faith? Do they fight? Does the Masked Lady cut off one side or the other? What does this do to her power? What does the power vacuum lead to? How do you get adventures out of it? I could see adventurers (of all races) getting sucked into a 'shadow war' of power and maneuvering. "We need you to break into this temple of Eilestrae and steal their Pope Hat, so we can use it as a symbol of how we're favoured." "We need deniable pawns to break into this reliquary of Vhaerhoun and steal the skull of their former leader so we can speak with dead and find out what they're up to next." etc. etc.

It was like at the end of the Hand of Thrawn dualogy, where the peace treaty was signed and worlds would get to decide if they wanted to join the Republic or the Imperial Remnant. All sorts of RPG oportunities there.


It is not unlike what happened to DL with the Summer of Chaos.

Silver Crusade

Jeremiziah wrote:
ArianDynas wrote:

Hey all, hate to be a bit of a necromancer my first post here, but this seemed like the least fossilized thread to post in after a cursory search on the subject.

Basically here to say I loved the Forgotten Realms, and despise how it was taken, in many respects I spent my childhood in Faerun, reading the novels which I adored, wasting most of my time in Neverwinter, Waterdeep, Amn and Baldur's Gate, and designing countless characters for game after game.

And well when I saw the suggestion here earlier in the thread, the idea occurred to me, there is a way to save the realms in such a way as to alienate no one.

The idea being that when Cyric attacked Mystra in Dewomerheart, the realms split, into Toril as experienced by mortals, a world which found itself adrift on the so called Astral Sea, and an alternative Prime Material Plane.

And the Weave itself, which Midnight, mortally wounded by Cyric's treachery, managed to mold the realms from, creating an exact copy of the realms at the moment of Cyric's attack, as well as giving her enough time to send her power to Alassra Silverhand, better known as the Simbul, robbing Cyric of his victory, leaving the Weave intact in the traditional D&D reality, and the original Toril, now floating around in the 4th edition cosmology with the weave violently ripped from it, causing not only the spellplague, but the drastic reordering of the heavens from it being shunted into a parallel Prime Material Plane.

Pretty sure I'll get lambasted for even posting this, but either way, putting it somewhere made me feel a bit better about the whole situation, which up until now had just ignored, feeling my frustrations were far better being ignored than confronted.

I'm not going to lambaste you. I'm going to hope you're Ed Greenwood posting under a sock puppet. I think this is brilliant.

Thanks, I hope I am too. I might not be Ed, but I sure hope he gets an idea like this.

It might be able to make me like Forgotten Realms again.

The Exchange

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ArianDynas wrote:
Jeremiziah wrote:
ArianDynas wrote:

Hey all, hate to be a bit of a necromancer my first post here, but this seemed like the least fossilized thread to post in after a cursory search on the subject.

Basically here to say I loved the Forgotten Realms, and despise how it was taken, in many respects I spent my childhood in Faerun, reading the novels which I adored, wasting most of my time in Neverwinter, Waterdeep, Amn and Baldur's Gate, and designing countless characters for game after game.

And well when I saw the suggestion here earlier in the thread, the idea occurred to me, there is a way to save the realms in such a way as to alienate no one.

The idea being that when Cyric attacked Mystra in Dewomerheart, the realms split, into Toril as experienced by mortals, a world which found itself adrift on the so called Astral Sea, and an alternative Prime Material Plane.

And the Weave itself, which Midnight, mortally wounded by Cyric's treachery, managed to mold the realms from, creating an exact copy of the realms at the moment of Cyric's attack, as well as giving her enough time to send her power to Alassra Silverhand, better known as the Simbul, robbing Cyric of his victory, leaving the Weave intact in the traditional D&D reality, and the original Toril, now floating around in the 4th edition cosmology with the weave violently ripped from it, causing not only the spellplague, but the drastic reordering of the heavens from it being shunted into a parallel Prime Material Plane.

Pretty sure I'll get lambasted for even posting this, but either way, putting it somewhere made me feel a bit better about the whole situation, which up until now had just ignored, feeling my frustrations were far better being ignored than confronted.

I'm not going to lambaste you. I'm going to hope you're Ed Greenwood posting under a sock puppet. I think this is brilliant.

Thanks, I hope I am too. I might not be Ed, but I sure hope he gets an idea like this.

Hi Ed. You can come clean now that you announced the Realms event to be known as 'The Sundering' at Gencon last night ;)


So, after brief hunting, I found on the WotC forums someone else's post interesting:

Someone named Irennen wrote:

To quote what Erik S. de Bie -who's in the new FR development team- posted on CK:

Erik S. de Bie wrote:

Official news:

No retcons, no reboots.

Gods are coming back.

The worlds are coming apart again.

The Spellplague is being solved.

Lore support for multiple eras is on the table.

Questions?

Cheers

Sounds encouraging, especially considering that it's official news, and not just some hint.

EDIT 2: Also, this interesting thread from Candlekeep.

So, that's... interesting to say the least. (And also relevant to the current discussion.)

EDIT:
Also, Matt, for me, it was a fascinating idea looking at it entirely from Eilistraee's point of view. The character switch inherent in such a thing, as indicated, was very cool. But then again, I actually like my gods as characters too, so...

Sovereign Court RPG Superstar 2009 Top 32, 2010 Top 8

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Hmm, maybe my joke about Drizzit drinking potions of haste and running backwards in time was picked up on?

Coming January 2013, FlashRealms! See what the Realms would be like if Kelemvor had become the god of murder and Adon was something besides a whiny cleric! See the Simbul and Elminster fight instead of rut!

Then come Gen Con 2013, the NuFR! See 52 sourcebooks come out, one a week! See the history of your favourite characters tweaked just enough to annoy you! See other characters you care about erased completely!


The Sundering? Dammit people, the Realms has already had a "The Sundering!" Come up with some new names for RSE already! :P

On a side-note: It's pretty good to see that they realize how incredibly unpopular the Spellplague has been for the Realms, and are going to "solve" it. Ditto the gods.


I'm... really curious about how they're going to do all that without retconning stuff.

And Matt: I dunno, seeing El and Sim do either would be interesting.

(And Adon really was kind of whiny.)

Sovereign Court RPG Superstar 2009 Top 32, 2010 Top 8

Tacticslion wrote:

I'm... really curious about how they're going to do all that without retconning stuff.

And Matt: I dunno, seeing El and Sim do either would be interesting.

(And Adon really was kind of whiny.)

Tactislion,

I was poking fun at DC's Flashpoint and Nu52 actually.


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Hahah! I actually didn't get that at all. Wow. I've... been out of the comic game for too long, it seems.

(But Adon really was kind of whiny. Related: Sune may have been kind of a jerk.)


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I believe I will be very excited to return home. It's been a long time since I've been home, and traveling the planes is awful without knowing you have a home to go to.

I do hope the Sundering does fix the plague of spells, those poor wizards, priests, and other good people deserved better than that.

I watched the keynote online, and it made me excited for the 'Realms again! I get to be excited about more than one setting in my games again (this makes me happy).


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So, I've been sick, and took the opportunity to read Elminster Enraged.

Good news everyone:

SPOILER ALERT!:
MYSTRA'S BACK BABY! BOO-YAH! (And I don't mean Midnight ascended either - I mean, I kind of do... point is, it's both of them, at the same time, but mostly it's the "original" Mystra, though not the Mystryl from ye olden days, except it probably is. In other words, it's a little complicated, but it's kind of all of the Mystras a bit.) Also, THE HARPERS! AND CORMYR WILL BE AWESOME FOREVER NOW, PROBABLY!

In less-good news:

less-awesome-spoiler alert:
The Simbul is gone, as in totally forever (supposedly). And she's not exactly Mystra. Sort of. More like Elminster "ate" her (against his will - more accurately, she fed herself to him while he was dying and unable to stop it) and then Elminster surrendered all the awesome that he got from doing that into the vestige of Mystra, which was enough to reignite her divine spark/essence into a full-fledged god.

In... interesting news:

Eh... nifty to know?:
So, apparently Manshoon's been a chosen the whole time, and also been manipulated by the Shades. At least now his strangely occasionally-myopic view of the world suddenly makes sense.

Also (and this is super-minor spoiler territory, so I'm just going to leave it uncovered) not only does Elminster become a drow, he actually becomes a super-hot young female drow. On purpose. Because of the suggestion of an old high-elf lover of his.

Also: good to know that Ed doesn't like (or at least highly enjoys mocking) the 4E FR stuff. I mean, it's pretty obvious in this series as people either complain about them (there's an entire paragraph about Elminster mentally griping about how "Magic sucks, now!" more or less), or Ed flouts them outright with things noted to be "impossible" (though he actually does give a subtle sort-of explanation as to why that might be, though you do have to read into it).

Dark Archive

Like taxi cabs in the rain in New York, you can never get a Grognard when you need one.

:: casts Summon Knight Errant JR ::


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baron arem heshvaun wrote:

Like taxi cabs in the rain in New York, you can never get a Grognard when you need one.

:: casts Summon Knight Errant JR ::

Man, those summoning spells can work slowly at times . . .

Spoiler:
Is it bad the first time in a long time that I started to get Realms ideas circulating was when I was reading through the 13th Age Beta rules?

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