Before Dragon goes completely kaput, is there any chance you guys could whoop out some sort of Modron Web Enhancement converting the remaining modrons?
Don't leave us Modron fans truly hanging! :(
Apparently Dragon #356 is hinted in Scale Mail that the staff at Dragon might finish off the Modrons before Dragon dies out. I really hope Erik Mona is jerking our chains with this... :|
Told ya modrons were more popular than expected, heh.
Again, if space restrictions are what you're worried about, there's always WE.
Again, if space restrictions are what you're worried about, there's always WE.By web enhancement do you mean digital initiative? You should begin petitioning Wizards of the Coast, my friend. :)
I was planning on sending in a query for the Hierarch Modrons to you guys and hope it ended up in WotC's hands after Dragon leaves, but Ken Marable, the author of the article in #354, said he'd do it. He'd do a better job than me anyway :D
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I was planning on sending in a query for the Hierarch Modrons to you guys and hope it ended up in WotC's hands after Dragon leaves, but Ken Marable, the author of the article in #354, said he'd do it. He'd do a better job than me anyway :D
Not a bad plan. A slightly safer plan would be to wait until Wizards of the Coast announced their submissions guidelines, and then just send it directly to them. :)
Unless their SGs say something like: "Absolutely NO heirarch modrons!" Which would be unexpected.
I was planning on sending in a query for the Hierarch Modrons to you guys and hope it ended up in WotC's hands after Dragon leaves, but Ken Marable, the author of the article in #354, said he'd do it. He'd do a better job than me anyway :D
Well, thanks for the vote of confidence. Especially after seeing Erik's reply in Scale Mail, I did let them know that I'm interested. But given the lead time they normally have for the magazines the writing for the last issue is probably well underway with the final editing of it happening in June. So it's probably getting too close to the wire (unless they are doing it themselves or have someone else doing them, which is fine by me), and I'm sure there's entire heap loads of material that would have loved to have had time to cover.
So we'll see. But maybe WotC will pick up the idea in their Digital Initiative (hopefully without printing costs and page counts to worry about they might be more willing to work in the more niche areas, but we'll see). Or I still think they should do a Draconomicon/Fiendish Codex/etc. for Constructs and include a section in there. (C'mon, how can they pass up publishing the "Constructicon"?) ;)
Either way, I'm sure somewhere somehow we'll see the rest of the modrons detailed. Like you, I'd REALLY love it if they made it into one of the last issues of Dragon, but someday I'm sure they'll get done.
Hey, I recall you mentioning that you were working up some versions of them. If you have I'd like to take a gander sometime.
Just for kicks, here's one of the pieces they cut from the original article. The only other cut were a few feats that in hindsight weren't that hot anyway.
Now, just to warn you, this is porting the modrons over to Eberron and the Forgotten Realms in a pretty serious way. In my mind it's trivial to just say "They are from Plane X instead of Mechanus" so I instead tried to re-image them fitting more into the history and cosmology of the setting in an interesting and original way. So this isn't for the non-canon squeamish (which is probably the main reason this was cut instead of something else):
Modrons in Eberron
Regulus sits on the plane of Daanvi, the Perfect Order. Here they maintain countless dragonmark covered orreries all designed to help unlock the secrets of the Draconic Prophesy. The largest of these rises from the Energy Pool that powers all modrons and its complexity is beyond mortal comprehension. Primus dwells within this orrery, endlessly viewing the Prophesy as an equation to be solved. This mindset has revealed many truths within the Prophesy, but the modrons' intense focus on logic and reason prevents them from uncovering much of the Prophesy so far.
Each Modron March is designed to seek out signs of the Prophesy within the other planes, as well as on Eberron and within Khyber and occurs during a time when Daanvi is coterminous with the Material Plane. However, given the history of planar invasions within Eberron, the modrons enter the Material Plane in numerous small squads and not as a massive force. Within Khyber and the other planes, however, they still march as a force of thousands.
A powerful leader of the quori infiltrated Regulus through the dreams of a mortal exploring the realm and caused the Rogue March. The quori killed and replaced Primus, and then directed the modrons to march and gather information on the kalashtar and rogue quori throughout Eberron. Fortunately for the kalashtar, since the modrons never dream, the thoughts of the quori were quite alien making the March chaotic and uncoordinated. It left its mark upon the modron race, but the secrets of the kalashtar remained undiscovered.
Since that time, no modron, even rogue and exiled, willingly travels to Sarlona. They long to explore the clues of the Prophesy displayed within that continent, but fear the nightmarish visions they had under quori control. Furthermore, the touch of the quori also had a physical affect such that the outer shells of all newly created and promoted modrons since the Rogue March have crystalline plates integrated into their clockwork forms.
Modrons in Faerun
The modrons have loyally served Jergal within the Fugue Plane for ages. They endlessly observe and catalogue the deaths of all things, not out of malice, but from the cold, dispassionate thoroughness a scholar would have while studying the life cycles of insects. They have fulfilled this role for so long, even back to the days before the Dead Three, that few fear the modrons, but nearly all who are aware of them see their arrival as a dire omen that someone’s death approaches.
The purpose of the Modron March is utterly unfathomable. They do not seem to be seeking to cause more death, and take little note of the deaths of others along the March. It seems to many sages that the March simply exists as a blatant sign by Jergal that death forever walks among them – waiting for the proper time – even during the times it remains rarely seen.
The relationship between Primus and Jergal is also unclear. Primus does not seem to serve Jergal so much as they both embody the same principles, and therefore find their goals intertwined. Furthermore, Primus does not represent the order of logic and mathematics, but the final end point of all life. The single unity all living things have in death.
Bane caused the death of the previous Primus and the Rogue March during his emergence from death. Those few who have dared to study the phenomenon believe that rather than using the modrons to gather information, Bane needed to slay Primus and seize control of them as part of a ritual of deific proportions to defeat death itself and return to life.
The modrons of the Fugue Plane all exhibit the grey bleakness of the plane in their appearance, with white clockwork parts and armor plates that sometimes look more like bone than metal.
The, "In the Realms" take is interesting, and I kind of like the idea that it ties modrons to Jergal rather than some other, more obvious route, but at the same time, even taking the new cosmology into account, I think that this might actually muddy continuity even further, since, new cosmology or not, Orcus was killed by Kiaraunsalee and became Tenebrous in the Realms as well, so Bane's return being tied to Primus' death just adds another complication to an already muddled planar situation.
That having been said, it was indeed an interesting take, and the root cause of the confusion certainly has nothing to do with your inventive take on this.
The, "In the Realms" take is interesting, and I kind of like the idea that it ties modrons to Jergal rather than some other, more obvious route, but at the same time, even taking the new cosmology into account, I think that this might actually muddy continuity even further, since, new cosmology or not, Orcus was killed by Kiaraunsalee and became Tenebrous in the Realms as well, so Bane's return being tied to Primus' death just adds another complication to an already muddled planar situation.
That having been said, it was indeed an interesting take, and the root cause of the confusion certainly has nothing to do with your inventive take on this.
Fair enough. I'm certainly not as much of a FR expert as I wish I was. But that does sound familiar about Orcus' death. Mainly I was aiming for something more iconic to FR.
And the tie to Jergal was quite a stretch, but I was definitely going for the not-obvious connection, since obvious connections are easy for people to make on their own. :)
Either way, I'm sure somewhere somehow we'll see the rest of the modrons detailed. Like you, I'd REALLY love it if they made it into one of the last issues of Dragon, but someday I'm sure they'll get done.Hey, I recall you mentioning that you were working up some versions of them. If you have I'd like to take a gander sometime.
Yeah, I have them mostly finished. I used the old 3.5 monster format and used the flavor text from the MotP WE. Reason I used the old 3.5 format was cause it's still easier for me to work with and still very familiar to me. I still have yet to get used to the new format.
I mainly worked on their mechanics as opposed to the flavor text, anyway. If you want to take a look at them and use it yourself or tweak it around, feel free. :D
They're still under construction (no pun intended, heh), I've been fiddling with them here and there. I've been trying to give some unique abilities to make them more separate from each other than through mere rank and sorceror caster level. I gave the Hexton an interesting new twist along with the Septon, thanks to Monte Cook's article on "Modron Magic" way back. If you want to do the flavor text and come up with ideas for anything else with the hierarchs, we can do a joint effort on it and submit it when finished?
I did post it in the Homebrew conversion thread on ENWorld's forums, but I think they deleted it after doing some cleaning up and put all conversions onto one thread.
Fair enough. I'm certainly not as much of a FR expert as I wish I was. But that does sound familiar about Orcus' death. Mainly I was aiming for something more iconic to FR.And the tie to Jergal was quite a stretch, but I was definitely going for the not-obvious connection, since obvious connections are easy for people to make on their own. :)
Oh, I really liked it as an alternate way to tie it to the Realms, and I really appreciate that you shared it. Plus I really liked the original article. Didn't want all that to get lost in light of my comment.
I'd have simply kept Mechanus in the Realms. After all, they kept Carceri and Limbo in the Realms, despite the fact that they're not supposed to exist in the Realms cosmology. (which most folks don't follow really anyway)
Ultimately it's better off having Tenebrous slay Primus. Of course, this still doesn't explain where Primus lives since there is no Mechanus in the realms (as far as I know).
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Before Dragon goes completely kaput, is there any chance you guys could whoop out some sort of Modron Web Enhancement converting the remaining modrons?
Don't leave us Modron fans truly hanging! :(
I agree! I really liked the Modrons, even though I'd never heard of them before the April issue. I was thinking they'd be a perfect side-trek for a campaign with a lost-tech feel. Now that I know about them, I want the complete set.
P.S. My First Post on the Paizo boards! Huzzah!
I agree! I really liked the Modrons, even though I'd never heard of them before the April issue. I was thinking they'd be a perfect side-trek for a campaign with a lost-tech feel. Now that I know about them, I want the complete set.
P.S. My First Post on the Paizo boards! Huzzah!
I'm interested to hear in more detail what you thought about the article, if you don't mind. What you liked and disliked, what didn't make sense, that sort of thing. I've been familiar with modrons for a very long time and I tried to write the article with an eye towards both those who already knew who they were and those who never heard of them before. But since they are so ingrained in my mind, I'm interested in hearing how the article felt to those just being introduced to the little lawful fellas.
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I'm interested to hear in more detail what you thought about the article, if you don't mind. What you liked and disliked, what didn't make sense, that sort of thing. I've been familiar with modrons for a very long time and I tried to write the article with an eye towards both those who already knew who they were and those who never heard of them before. But since they are so ingrained in my mind, I'm interested in hearing how the article felt to those just being introduced to the little lawful fellas.
Wow. I guess this thread is dead, but I didn't notice the response till just now. I think the thing that made me read the article first was that there was a huge picture of a modron on the cover, which got me intrigued. Then, I read that they were from Mechanus, which was cool because the MM doesn't have a lot of cool lawful monsters to populate Mechanus with, characters that really fit with the plane's concept. (I picture formians living on a huge ant farm, not a watch-cog world). I also liked that there were a lot of details about their relationship to the plane. I don't know how much of that background you took from earlier sources, but it all seemed to fit together.