This is not meant to be negative towards the Seeds of Sehan which is a great adventure, but where are the Far Realms?!?
It seemed like all the hype leading up to the new arc suggested it was a Far Realms adventure...I guess I was looking for something more along the lines of Dragon #330 than a half-farspawn boss.
Does the third installment add some more Cordell flavor?
Really, otherwise it's great. I love the Child of Sehan!
Creative Director
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The Far Realms, in my opinion, are best when taken in small doses. It's a bit ironic, but the more we learn about them, the less alien they become. An adventure set in the Far Realms probably won't appear in Dungeon any time soon for that matter. If only because describing what they're like would take up the entire issue.
So anyway, yeah. There's some more far-realms stuff in the second and third adventures in the arc, but nothing that enormous.
I don't even know what a Far Realm is.
What's a Far Realm?
A vacation house.
I don't even know what a Far Realm is.
What's a Far Realm?
The Far Realms is/are that space or plane (or group of planes) at the edge of what we like to call "reality." That said, it can theoretically exist everywhere. It's round that next bend, at the bottom of the ocean, at the fringes of the astral plane, in that spooky deserted house, floating in orbit above Pluto, and just under your bed. The concept is based on H. P. Lovecraft's and members of his writing circle's literary work; the home of the Outer Gods. These gods unlike folks like Pelor or Hextor could care less about humanity and are so remote and alien that to see (or experience) one could drive you mad. A common theme in such writing is that the Outer Gods represent the REAL Reality and what we live in is a sort of "dark age" in which we know nothing about the true horrors in the cosmos things that can destroy our entire civilization with the same lack of malice or thought that we show when we accidentally step on an ants. However we are supposedly moving closer to the day we learn too much about science, math, physics, biology, and magic and that one day we will either be consumed by our knowledge attracting unwanted attention from beings beyond our understanding or else retreat into blissful ignorance once again.
The "Far Realm" concept first appeared in D&D in The Gates of Firestorm Peak by Bruce Cordell. According to The Manual of the Planes the Far Realm is a multilayered plane of existance that one can see through like so many planes of glass (of various thicknesses) stacked one upon the other. Some of the layers are miles and mile thick while some are nearly two dimensional. Many of the realm's larger denizens exist in multiple planes at once. The rules that govern life are differnt here. Plants, animals, minerals, gravity, friction, distance, time, space, and thought are all mutable and random to human sensibility here and the creatures that exist here are quite obviously beyond normal discription.
Spoiler about Sehan's origin to follow.
I don't even know what a Far Realm is.
What's a Far Realm?
Essentially it's a different multiverse from that of the Great Wheel, a neighboring pocket of reality with its own laws, concepts and conditions that range from antithetical to nonsensical by comparison to those of the normal multiverse (of course, denizens of the Far Realm seem to view our reality similarly. We're as bizarre to them as they are to us, and points where they briefly, tenuously touch aren't pleasant for anyone).
It's strongly inspired by Lovecraft's ideas, but Cordell (and others of late) have done a nice job making it something that while inspired by HPL, can stand on their own quite nicely within the context of D&D.
The Far Realms is/are that space or plane (or group of planes) at the edge of what we like to call "reality." That said, it can theoretically exist everywhere. It's round that next bend, at the bottom of the ocean, at the fringes of the astral plane, in that spooky deserted house, floating in orbit above Pluto, and just under your bed. The concept is based on H. P. Lovecraft's and members of his writing circle's literary work; the home of the Outer Gods. These gods unlike folks like Pelor or Hextor could care less about humanity and are so remote and alien that to see (or experience) one could drive you mad. A common theme in such writing is that the Outer Gods represent the REAL Reality and what we live in is a sort of "dark age" in which we know nothing about the true horrors in the cosmos things that can destroy our entire civilization with the same lack of malice or thought that we show when we accidentally step on an ant. However we are supposedly moving closer to the day we learn too much about science, math, physics, biology, and magic and that one day we will either be consumed by our knowledge attracting unwanted attention from beings beyond our understanding or else retreat into blissful ignorance once again.I don't even know what a Far Realm is.
What's a Far Realm?
(Uproarious Applause)
Cthulhu-Ftaghn!
(Uproarious Applause)Cthulhu-Ftaghn!
Thank you! thank you! I'm here all week.
-The Great Green Outer God