# Covers Preview for Elemental Evil Adventurer's Handbook and Princes of the Apocalypse!



## Wolfskin (Jan 2, 2015)

With the New Year, we finally get a glimpse at the covers of the upcoming _Elemental Evil_ storyline for D&D 5E - _Princes of the Apocalypse_ and the accompanying player sourcebook, _Adventurer's Handbook_.

For more D&D 5E schedule information, click here.









Not hi res at all, but it's something!*Save**Save**Save**Save*​


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## the Jester (Jan 2, 2015)

Yeah, had these not been set in the Realms, they would have been an almost sure-fire sell to me. 

In the Realms? No interest.

For Christ's sake, the Temple of Elemental Evil, the Elder Elemental Eye and the whole elemental evil cult thing are all huge fixtures of Greyhawk. Sigh.


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## Vael (Jan 2, 2015)

More Realms? I'm really wishing for non-Realms adventures. We'll see what goes into the Adventurer's Handbook. Hopefully it's not too specific to this adventure path.


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## Sailor Moon (Jan 2, 2015)

Is Wizards in some sort of self destruct mode when it comes to the Forgotten Realms?


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## TheCelric (Jan 2, 2015)

Giltonio_Santos said:


> So, it's official now. The Elder Elemental Eye has been somehow released from The World of Greyhawk to unleash havoc in the Realms. No fantasy world was described in more detail than the Forgotten Realms, and they still manage to produce not one, but _two_ storylines in a row with themes and antagonists that have nothing to do with the Realms. Good job, Wizards.




http://forgottenrealms.wikia.com/wiki/Cult_of_the_Elder_Elemental_Eye

It obviously didn't take the same form as it did in Greyhawk, but it's certainly a thing in the Realms. The first recorded cult was the same year that Drizzt came to the surface, The Pool of Radiance was seized by Tyranthraxus, and Sembia went to war in Featherdale.

Personally, I withhold judgement until it does something that "breaks" the Realms in a bad way until I condemn it. This seems like something that could easily happen in Chessenta again (where they (still) revere a Red Dragon as demi-god), and the PC's are once again there to stamp it out (maybe even with a throw-back call up from Mystra).


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## Jester David (Jan 2, 2015)

Giltonio_Santos said:


> So, it's official now. The Elder Elemental Eye has been somehow released from The World of Greyhawk to unleash havoc in the Realms. No fantasy world was described in more detail than the Forgotten Realms, and they still manage to produce not one, but _two_ storylines in a row with themes and antagonists that have nothing to do with the Realms. Good job, Wizards.



I have to agree with this sentiment. 

They've said they'll do other settings IF they have a story, and then they pull stories from other settings to force them into the Realms. 

Which also isn't nice on the Realms. It's taking an established setting and forcing a story into that world, changing lore to accommodate the storyline. Like how they had to radically change the motives and plans of the Cult of the Dragon for their first storyline. That's not how you tell a story set in an established world. The story is meant to fit and compliment the world and if a bit of lore doesn't mesh then the story has to change to accommodate the world, not the other way around.


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## Astrosicebear (Jan 2, 2015)

IM ok with it.

Takes the best of Greyhawk, gods and badasses, and puts it in the Realms, which had better locations and flavors.


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## Jester David (Jan 2, 2015)

Vael said:


> More Realms? I'm really wishing for non-Realms adventures. We'll see what goes into the Adventurer's Handbook. Hopefully it's not too specific to this adventure path.




Keep in mind the storylines will also tie into the organized play program, affecting the villains and themes of those adventures. So they have to be in the Realms until that establishes themselves or they develop a method of moving between worlds. So the first real non-Realms adventure might be a Planescape/ extraplanar affair to allow PCs (or plots) to easily move between worlds.


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## Sailor Moon (Jan 2, 2015)

Seems to me they are trying to turn FR into a generic world.


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## Jester David (Jan 2, 2015)

Three thoughts:

1) I expected the title to be "_Elemental Evil Adventurer's Handbook_" not just "_Adventurer's Handbook_". The latter sounds far too generic and not storyline specific with the title being so large and the little corner logo being so small. It will be harder to have an _Adventurer's Handbook_ for other Adventure Paths without possible confusion. 
I imagine this accessory *could* be a little more generic to serve as your standard splatbook in addition to player sourcebook on elemental evils. But that's a little lame when elemental power is such a cool theme in and of itself. There's nothing in the cover or title that screams "this is the book if you want to make an elemental themed character!!" 

2) The covers are kinda bland. I'm not getting "phenomenal elemental power" from the _Adventurer's Handbook_. I'm getting pissed off druid. Ditto _Princes of the Apocalypse_. It doesn't seem very culty or Evil Elemental Eye-ish. Is that meant to be an evil sylph? 

3) It's neat to see the covers. But what I *really* want to know is the pagecount, to see if they're large enough to justify the expense. Or if they're little tiny things. We know they're $40 and $50 respectively. As it's priced the same as the Core books, is the adventure a 320-page book? Or is it 200-pages, like two Tyranny of Dragons books combined? Is the Handbook at *least* 200-pages as well? (If so, why is it $10 cheaper.)


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## Sir Brennen (Jan 2, 2015)

Jester Canuck said:


> I expected the title to be "_Elemental Evil Adventurer's Handbook_" not just "_Adventurer's Handbook_". The latter sounds far too generic and not storyline specific with the title being so large and the little corner logo being so small. It will be harder to have an _Adventurer's Handbook_ for other Adventure Paths without possible confusion.
> I imagine this accessory *could* be a little more generic to serve as your standard splatbook in addition to player sourcebook on elemental evils. But that's a little lame when elemental power is such a cool theme in and of itself. There's nothing in the cover or title that screams "this is the book if you want to make an elemental themed character!!"



It's hard to make out in the low res images, but the black area in the upper left of both covers I think reads "Elemental Evil"... so perhaps the correct title IS _"Elemental Evil Adventurer's Handbook"_


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## BrockBallingdark (Jan 2, 2015)

I'm not a Forgotten Realms setting fan and never played the Grewhawk setting but certainly remember the Temple of Elemental Evil.  It can be ported to any setting, I would find a place for it in Eberron. 

I can see where some are getting upset with either FR being diluted with other setting stuff or taking from another setting that you want an official release for.

For someone new to the hobby, they may think the "Adventurer's Handbook" is a supplement to 5E rules, not specific to Elemental Evil.  I'm curious on what I could strip from it, if I'm not running Princes of the Apocalypse.  I do love the cover art for both books though it certainly does not make me think of any Elemental Evil.


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## Giltonio_Santos (Jan 2, 2015)

TheCelric said:


> http://forgottenrealms.wikia.com/wiki/Cult_of_the_Elder_Elemental_Eye
> 
> It obviously didn't take the same form as it did in Greyhawk, but it's certainly a thing in the Realms.




Ouch. This whole "Abyssal Plague" story sounds like the kind of thing I used to enjoy as a 12-years old young nerd. Now I wish I had never learned about its existence. Ignorance is bliss, after all.


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## Joe Liker (Jan 2, 2015)

Setting doesn't matter too much to me -- it's not that hard to transplant events from the Realms to another world.

What bothers me is that these are being created by an outside studio. The track record for such products for 5e has been astonishingly wretched so far.


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## Parmandur (Jan 2, 2015)

Seems pretty clear that they are doing Realms stuff for OP and the Neverwinter MMO to tie into; more than OP, they should get a Sigil-based MMO to tie anything, anywhere together.

Covers are alright; if the setting is as central as it is inToD, which is to say not much, shouldn't be a problem to port or file the serial numbers off.

If the quality matches Rick Bakers other recent adventure, this should kick ass.


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## Henry (Jan 2, 2015)

I hope it works for Wizards, but I didn't see the appeal with the Dragon Queen stuff, and I'm just not seeing the appeal here either. If I want Realms action, I'm busting out the Zhentarim; Manshoon; Halaster Blackcloak; Karsus and the Netherese Shades; Orcus; Moander or Tyranthraxus. I don't care about Tiamat (belongs to Krynn, really) or Tharizdun (belongs to Oerth in my mind). I kind of share Giltonio_Santos' sentiments in that respect.


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## Sadrik (Jan 2, 2015)

It might be better to have these setting neutral for all there modules they bring out. Put in them how to attach them to all of the established settings (or popular ones at least). Not an issue for me. 

Another thing is we have these long historical settings that have tremendous backstory (i.e. people to bitch about something not right). We need to see a new setting.


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## the Jester (Jan 2, 2015)

Giltonio_Santos said:


> Ouch. This whole "Abyssal Plague" story sounds like the kind of thing I used to enjoy as a 12-years old young nerd. Now I wish I had never learned about its existence. Ignorance is bliss, after all.




They couldn't even get the details right when porting Tharizdun into the Realms- he/it is NOT imprisoned in the Abyss, but rather in the "demiplane of imprisonment", hidden away deep deep deep in the ether.

Of course, 4e also took the "Tharizdun = Abyssal" approach. Sadly.


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## Mad Zagyg (Jan 2, 2015)

These book covers need more lightning in them.


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## Prism (Jan 2, 2015)

the Jester said:


> They couldn't even get the details right when porting Tharizdun into the Realms- he/it is NOT imprisoned in the Abyss, but rather in the "demiplane of imprisonment", hidden away deep deep deep in the ether.
> 
> Of course, 4e also took the "Tharizdun = Abyssal" approach. Sadly.




That's just a public wiki not official. 4e source said he created the abyss but was not imprisoned there. For me, Tharizdun as portrayed by Gary Gygax is far more powerful than a god within a single prime/pantheon and I'm fine with him being a force of evil across many worlds. Having said that I'm not sure the elemental evil cult is a strong enough idea to cross prime planes. Surely a god of pure evil would have a wealth of more interesting faces than being the big bad elemental guy on each plane


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## TheCelric (Jan 2, 2015)

Giltonio_Santos said:


> Ouch. This whole "Abyssal Plague" story sounds like the kind of thing I used to enjoy as a 12-years old young nerd. Now I wish I had never learned about its existence. Ignorance is bliss, after all.




Keep in mind that the Abyssal Plague was for 4th edition. Personally I would have been more excited if it referred to the spilling over Blood War, but whatever. 

Actually, there were some decent parts of the FR novels that related to the AP, but... no, wait... that was something else 

My main point was that the FR has certainly been a "dumping ground" for shoehorning elements into the setting for, well, for a long, long time. To start complaining about that *now* seems like a foolish conceit. And while there are other settings that have stronger elements of "X", that doesn't mean that those things aren't also canon in the FR. Everyone knows that Dragonlance was the setting for Dragons and lances, but Dragons are everywhere in Realmslore, even riding them into battle. Ditto for Ravenloft and Vampires, Greyhawk and liches, Ebberon and, er, maybe not Warforged per se, but automations are there, and there are probably a few on the gnomish island of Lantan. And I'm not even talking about the barbarian Steppes where there are [Mongols] or the Chult Peninsula [dinosaurs], or Mazteca [Aztecs], or Kara-Tur [Oriental everything, including the "Great Wall"], or Zakhara [Arabic everything], or Mulhorand [Egyptian]. They might not be the most popular places to visit, but they exist and *have existed* in the Realms since at least 2nd Edition.

What I am most interested in is the story, the area, the tie-ins, and the immersion factor. If they do those correctly, then IDC if you're a die-hard fan of whatever setting, you'll happily play the adventure and make it yours. Or, steal all the ideas for it and make that yours, or port the story to your favorite world. Whatever. Good adventures > badly written adventures, period.


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## Kobold Stew (Jan 2, 2015)

Jester Canuck said:


> 1) I expected the title to be "_Elemental Evil Adventurer's Handbook_" not just "_Adventurer's Handbook_".




That appeared to be the case back in August. 

Since then, the byline seems to have been tweaked too (the cover now seems to read "Create heroic characters possessing elemental power in this [attractive? authoritative?] supplement for the world's greatest role-playing game".


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## Jester David (Jan 2, 2015)

Sir Brennen said:


> It's hard to make out in the low res images, but the black area in the upper left of both covers I think reads "Elemental Evil"... so perhaps the correct title IS _"Elemental Evil Adventurer's Handbook"_



My initial reaction is this might be confusing to a new player, who cannot just identify a book via its title. 
But I don't think many new people will buy these books. And, as it's a group game, I imagine someone will emphasise "checkout the logo in the corner".


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## Mistwell (Jan 2, 2015)

Parmandur said:


> Seems pretty clear that they are doing Realms stuff for OP and the Neverwinter MMO to tie into; more than OP, they should get a Sigil-based MMO to tie anything, anywhere together.
> 
> Covers are alright; if the setting is as central as it is inToD, which is to say not much, shouldn't be a problem to port or file the serial numbers off.
> 
> If the quality matches Rick Bakers other recent adventure, this should kick ass.




I think you overdid the acronyms  OP usually means Original Post, or Over Powered.  Given that, I have no idea what you just said.  Nor am I sure what inToD means.  At least I know what MMO means.


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## the Jester (Jan 2, 2015)

Prism said:


> That's just a public wiki not official. 4e source said he created the abyss but was not imprisoned there. For me, Tharizdun as portrayed by Gary Gygax is far more powerful than a god within a single prime/pantheon and I'm fine with him being a force of evil across many worlds.




You won't get any argument from me on this- although I thought Big T was imprisoned in the Abyss according to 4e lore, I may be wrong; it may be that it was never explicitly specified. Huh. 



Prism said:


> Having said that I'm not sure the elemental evil cult is a strong enough idea to cross prime planes. Surely a god of pure evil would have a wealth of more interesting faces than being the big bad elemental guy on each plane




Yeah, well, the shoehorned merging of The Elder Elemental Eye and Tharizdun never appealed to me, and was a product of the 3e-era meatgrinder _Return to the Temple of Elemental Evil_ (which hardly did ever return to the ToEE at all).

I much prefer a universe/multiverse that has _lots_ of big, evil, primordial, inchoate threats.


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## Chimpy (Jan 2, 2015)

Really looking forward to the next adventure, hoping I find it better than HotDQ. Rich Baker's stuff has been good before.


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## Mirtek (Jan 2, 2015)

Well, from an in-universe perspective it makes sense.

They already tried their ToEE thingy twice on Oerth. Now they either need a new shtick or move their old to a world that has not yet heard of it.

Guess they wen't for the lazy route instead of having to come up with a new scheme. Even ancient evils can be uncreative


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## gweinel (Jan 2, 2015)

How i would love the Dragon-Tiamat series was tied on Dragonlance setting and the Elemental Evil series was tied on Greyhawk...


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## lyle.spade (Jan 2, 2015)

Did you know that you can just put these - or any! - adventures in any world you'd like? Seriously. You can. The WOTC folks won't ever know...

On a serious note, FR bores me, but good adventures with dragons and cults and evil and temples fit anywhere for the DM who puts in a little time to tweak the fluff. I don't see what all the grousing is about.


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## RichGreen (Jan 2, 2015)

I'm looking forward to these books. Rich Baker is a great adventure designer - he wrote the awesome Red Hand of Doom - and knows the Realms too. Hopefully the Adventurer's Handbook will be usable in other settings too.


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## TheCelric (Jan 2, 2015)

lyle.spade said:


> On a serious note, FR bores me, but good adventures with dragons and cults and evil and temples fit anywhere for the DM who puts in a little time to tweak the fluff. I don't see what all the grousing is about.




Heh. I can get behind this, but the lore of the FR is exciting to me. more than the adventures, I love reading where things grow to be in the future and from whence they came in the past. The adventurer's really only know the _now_ of a campaign, unless there's some really good reason to delve in the library in-game, or it's a time jumping adventure. As a DM, I find the other things happening in the world fascinating, and try to sprinkle those into the game whenever possible. The Tavern you guys just entered is filled with people talking about such and such thing happening in far-away Cormyr. The guards at the gate warn of Red wizards in the area, and "where there are Red Wizards, there's always darkenbeasts", or zombies. Whatever. Lore and more of it.


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## gweinel (Jan 2, 2015)

lyle.spade said:


> Did you know that you can just put these - or any! - adventures in any world you'd like? Seriously. You can. The WOTC folks won't ever know...
> 
> On a serious note, FR bores me, but good adventures with dragons and cults and evil and temples fit anywhere for the DM who puts in a little time to tweak the fluff. I don't see what all the grousing is about.




Of course I can play the adventures in any world i like. Actually I am playing the HotDQ in my homebrew campaign. This isn't the point. It is just I find annoying to take some of the iconic features of some settings (like Dragonlance and Greyhawk) and with an eclectic approach to put all these in the Realms. What about the Realms lore? Having Realms as one of my least appealing settings doesn't help to like the whole idea.


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## Ranes (Jan 2, 2015)

TheCelric said:


> Heh. I can get behind this, but the lore of the FR is exciting to me. more than the adventures, I love reading where things grow to be in the future and from whence they came in the past. The adventurer's really only know the _now_ of a campaign, unless there's some really good reason to delve in the library in-game, or it's a time jumping adventure. As a DM, I find the other things happening in the world fascinating, and try to sprinkle those into the game whenever possible. The Tavern you guys just entered is filled with people talking about such and such thing happening in far-away Cormyr. The guards at the gate warn of Red wizards in the area, and "where there are Red Wizards, there's always darkenbeasts", or zombies. Whatever. Lore and more of it.




I'm not the FR's biggest fan (nor am I a huge fan of Greyhawk, as it happens) but it sounds like you're putting it to excellent use. I am a huge fan of anything to do with the Elder Elemental Eye, however, for reasons I can't quite quantify. The bottom line is, I don't see why the Realms can't take on board some EEE.

Not impressed by those covers though. That ain't no Prince of  the Apocalypse, unless it's a trans-gender themed end of days thing (which is fine, of course). And I'm not sold on the strategy of combining a supplemental player's handbook with a campaign. I know it's been done lots of times before but I've never been a fan of it. I've often wanted to run such games in the past, only to find myself in the awkward situation of acting as a reluctant salesman for the supplement to a friend who thought he'd already bought into the game by investing in a PHB.


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## Dire Bare (Jan 2, 2015)

Sailor Moon said:


> Seems to me they are trying to turn FR into a generic world.




Perhaps I'm missing some sarcasm here, but . . . the Realms IS a pretty generic world. It's why Greyhawk, Mystara, and even Dragonlance don't see much action, because they are ALL fairly generic worlds without much to distinguish themselves from each other. And the Realms has long been the most popular of the three, so it makes perfect sense for WotC to highlight the setting.

The storylines of Tyranny of Dragons and Elemental Evil are PERFECT matches for FR. Retreading the War of the Lance in Dragonlance does not excite me, retreading the Temple of Elemental Evil in Greyhawk does not excite me. But adapting those themes to a different setting, one that is EASY-PEASY to translate to any homebrew? That is interesting to me, and I suspect to a lot of other people too, despite the Internet Kvetching Team's best complaints.

Guys, you are simply not going to get a new Greyhawk release anytime soon. It's also pretty unlikely we'll see a Dragonlance release in the near future. I'm a fan of both settings, and I'm excited to see their themes brought forward into the new edition. If I get a hankering to run me some classic Dragonlance, adapting Tyranny of Dragons should be super easy. Likewise with the upcoming Elemental Evil campaign if I really want to run me some Greyhawk goodness.

Or, I suppose, this is the internet. I could just join in on all the sour grapes and offended fans. Jeesh.

_EDIT: Oh yeah, and the artwork is fantastic! Really don't get the complaints and weird "transgender" comments. Keep up the good work WotC! You are making at least this guy happy with 5E!_


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## SilverfireSage (Jan 2, 2015)

About the Greyhawk complaints, who other than grognards actually knows about Greyhawk at all? There are at least a few fantasy buffs that know about Drizzt and Elminster and the Forgotten Realms, perhaps Dragonlance as well, but Greyhawk is relatively unknown. This edition just came out and they're still trying to build up a player base, why would they try to do that with a relatively unknown setting?


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## pukunui (Jan 2, 2015)

Those could just be stand-in covers, you know. Wouldn't be the first time the artwork changes between the previews and the final thing.


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## Sitara (Jan 2, 2015)

So will we be seeing new character options in the Adventurers Handbook? Who is it being written by, WOTC or a 3rd party?


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## the Jester (Jan 2, 2015)

gweinel said:


> Of course I can play the adventures in any world i like. Actually I am playing the HotDQ in my homebrew campaign. This isn't the point. It is just I find annoying to take some of the iconic features of some settings (like Dragonlance and Greyhawk) and with an eclectic approach to put all these in the Realms. What about the Realms lore? Having Realms as one of my least appealing settings doesn't help to like the whole idea.




Yeah, the shoehorning of everything into the 4e default setting was one of the things that, I think, left a lot of people disliking it.

Speaking as a guy who didn't use, but did like, the 4e default setting.


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## the Jester (Jan 2, 2015)

Dire Bare said:


> Guys, you are simply not going to get a new Greyhawk release anytime soon. It's also pretty unlikely we'll see a Dragonlance release in the near future.




Cite, please.

Or are you just assuming?


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## pukunui (Jan 2, 2015)

the Jester said:


> Cite, please.
> 
> Or are you just assuming?



Chris Perkins said something to that effect in a recent interview. (IIRC, it was something about them not reviving Dragonlance unless they could come up with a good story for it.)


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## pukunui (Jan 2, 2015)

Sitara said:


> So will we be seeing new character options in the Adventurers Handbook? Who is it being written by, WOTC or a 3rd party?



Yes, there will be new character options in the book, which is being written by Sasquatch Studios, or whatever they're called. WotC is overseeing the project and will publish it.


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## lyle.spade (Jan 2, 2015)

Dire Bare said:


> Perhaps I'm missing some sarcasm here, but . . . the Realms IS a pretty generic world. It's why Greyhawk, Mystara, and even Dragonlance don't see much action, because they are ALL fairly generic worlds without much to distinguish themselves from each other. And the Realms has long been the most popular of the three, so it makes perfect sense for WotC to highlight the setting.
> 
> The storylines of Tyranny of Dragons and Elemental Evil are PERFECT matches for FR. Retreading the War of the Lance in Dragonlance does not excite me, retreading the Temple of Elemental Evil in Greyhawk does not excite me. But adapting those themes to a different setting, one that is EASY-PEASY to translate to any homebrew? That is interesting to me, and I suspect to a lot of other people too, despite the Internet Kvetching Team's best complaints.
> 
> ...




Well said, Dire Bear. Those settings you mentioned are all pretty generic Western Europe-based fantasy worlds. Let's accept that and move along. Eberron is quite different, and even it doesn't escape m'lords and m'ladies and whatnot. I've never played Spelljammer, Dark Sun, or Ravenloft - and yet those seem to me to be the most unique and original worlds out there (that were official for DnD at some point).

I am actually very happy with the idea of taking some of the old 1e modules I have and converting them to 5e...in whatever world I decide to use, or perhaps my own. WOTC needs to make smart business decisions in terms of what books to produce, and so we're not going to get the wide shot patterns that we experienced way back when...it's not going to happen, and that's a good thing if we want the hobby through its flagship brand and company to prosper. WOTC will likely be conservative in what they produce and how much, and that's just good business sense for them. In the meantime I'll buy probably most of what they put out and will use it in whatever way I choose.

Remember: the WOTC police are not going to come and get you if you hack their modules.


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## Gradine (Jan 2, 2015)

Frankly I'm excited for this AP, and look forward to using it to restart my Eberron Campaign, where I imagine it will make a better, easier fit than ToD. I'm also pretty excited about the splatbook, it will be a good indicator of the direction they will be taking splat in general this edition.


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## HassanChop (Jan 2, 2015)

Like some others, I would prefer less Forgotten Realms and more other settings (Mystara, Greyhawk, Krynn, or a new setting).


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## lyle.spade (Jan 2, 2015)

Gradine said:


> Frankly I'm excited for this AP, and look forward to using it to restart my Eberron Campaign, where I imagine it will make a better, easier fit than ToD. I'm also pretty excited about the splatbook, it will be a good indicator of the direction they will be taking splat in general this edition.




Great idea! I'll happily steal anything I can find to plug into Eberron.


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## ranger69 (Jan 2, 2015)

I have DM'd Mystara, Forgotten Realms, and Greyhawk.  I can see why people think they are similar, they are.  However each has their own flavours also.   
Forgotten Realms is probably the best known setting, so it does make sense for WOTC to use that setting.
Whichever setting I have used, including homebrew, I have never had a problem mixing and matching adventures between settings.
I am less concerned where this AP is set than the quality of adventure.


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## AmerginLiath (Jan 2, 2015)

Jester Canuck said:


> Keep in mind the storylines will also tie into the organized play program, affecting the villains and themes of those adventures. So they have to be in the Realms until that establishes themselves or they develop a method of moving between worlds. So the first real non-Realms adventure might be a Planescape/ extraplanar affair to allow PCs (or plots) to easily move between worlds.




THIS.

As others have pointed, these adventures can be converted to other campaigns/settings (especially being released months after the DMG), but the Adventurer's League organized play setting requires both keeping to the adventure-as-written and continuity in the overall setting (for factions and such, even if characters change). So that means Forgotten Realms for the main Storyline Adventures at least for now.

The question of using Tiamat and the Elder Elemental Eye in FR is a different one, but I'm also fine with it. As others have noted, I don't want to see Dragonlance and Greyhawk directly recycle their major stories once again ("Return to the Return to Temple of Elemental Evil!"), and I say this as a guy whose every D&D game is pretty much set on Krynn and would love to see DL back. Better to have these 'remixes' of classic elements that new and old players alike can enjoy in another applicable setting, where they can then seek out and readily convert the originals in their proper homes.

There are legitimate critiques to be made of the Tyranny of Dragons series (and likely will be of this upcoming storyline), but these aren't necessarily the ones to be made.


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## lyle.spade (Jan 2, 2015)

SilverfireSage said:


> About the Greyhawk complaints, who other than grognards actually knows about Greyhawk at all? There are at least a few fantasy buffs that know about Drizzt and Elminster and the Forgotten Realms, perhaps Dragonlance as well, but Greyhawk is relatively unknown. This edition just came out and they're still trying to build up a player base, why would they try to do that with a relatively unknown setting?




Sadly, good point on Ancient and Esoteric Knowledge Known Only to Grognards (AEKKOG). I have the old White Box with all the extra books still...never owned the Greyhawk boxed set, and have been playing DnD since before 1e was called 1e...and to be honest I can't tell you what made Greyhawk unique. I do remember ads in Dragon magazine heralding the release of the FR boxed set, with maps and clear overlays and all that, but never bought it. In fact, Eberron was the first, and only official world I 'bought into,' and thankfully I did it from the beginning so as to be able to make sense of it.

Yeah, GH has castles and knights and whatnot, right? Sounds pretty generic. FR has that, and the every-annoying Elminster and Drizzt characters (sorry folks...they just never did it for me.) There are plenty of places in FR that sound cool to me - I enjoyed Icewind Dale in the computer game and a book or two - and again, I'll just steal what I like for my own games.

If I were to have my drothers, WOTC would get cracking and publish Eberron for 5e...that'd make me happy. But being an old gamer - or just a gamer - I would likely still invoke my right as a geek to find something minor to complain endlessly about. There's nothing like assuming ownership of someone else's intellectual property and then slinging pointed words at them. Online.

Does anyone want to talk about the new lightsaber hilt?


----------



## Mad Zagyg (Jan 2, 2015)

SilverfireSage said:


> About the Greyhawk complaints, who other than grognards actually knows about Greyhawk at all? There are at least a few fantasy buffs that know about Drizzt and Elminster and the Forgotten Realms, perhaps Dragonlance as well, but Greyhawk is relatively unknown. This edition just came out and they're still trying to build up a player base, why would they try to do that with a relatively unknown setting?




Living Greyhawk was HUGE, actually, and much loved by an enormous player base. It was also the default setting of 3rd edition, which is much more suited to that role, in my opinion, than the Forgotten Realms.

It also seems likely that Greyhawk holds a special place in the hearts and minds of many of the designers working in the business today.

Oerth definitely transcends merely a grognard stomping ground.


----------



## dwayne (Jan 2, 2015)

Please stop already with the god forsaken realms stuff, I am so sick of hearing about it its so detailed that almost everyone has been or heard about every inch of it above and below it. Please release some books with other settings, Darksun: psionics, Planescape: epic levels, Grayhawk: hard core sword and sorcery setting "tomb of horrors", Ravenloft: Dark horror/fear. Oriental adventures: honor and more ki and monks Asian flavor, A modern setting wild west or Cthulhu: for modern classes and insanity and alternatives to magic or mixing it with modern. These are just Ideas they could always put out a forgotten realms stuff as well if they want but give us some variety please,


----------



## Gradine (Jan 2, 2015)

lyle.spade said:


> Great idea! I'll happily steal anything I can find to plug into Eberron.




I'm actually still trying to figure out how to port ToD to Eberron. Right now where I've landed is replacing Tiamat with her cousin Masvirik the Cold Sun, moving the early action to Q'Barra, and replacing the half dragon cultist leaders with blackscale lizardfolk. I'm still pretty early in the conversion but I find myself liking this idea more than a basic find-and-replace proper noun conversion.


----------



## Staffan (Jan 2, 2015)

Gradine said:


> I'm actually still trying to figure out how to port ToD to Eberron. Right now where I've landed is replacing Tiamat with her cousin Masvirik the Cold Sun



Actually, Tiamat is a force in Eberron as well. She was one of the mightiest fiendish Overlords in the Age of Demons, with power over the very dragons who opposed them. There's some info on her in Dragons of Eberron. Just replace the Cult of the Dragon with Talons of Tiamat, and remove the bit about people being surprised at the Cult's abandonment of old-school dracoliches (because that was never a thing for the Talons).


----------



## Uchawi (Jan 2, 2015)

Sailor Moon said:


> Is Wizards in some sort of self destruct mode when it comes to the Forgotten Realms?



I don't think it is self destruct, but they also want to drop all the baggage which is supporting all the worlds to date and just choose one. But they are going to lose some people, since the approach is less than subtle.


----------



## Gradine (Jan 2, 2015)

Staffan said:


> Actually, Tiamat is a force in Eberron as well. She was one of the mightiest fiendish Overlords in the Age of Demons, with power over the very dragons who opposed them. There's some info on her in Dragons of Eberron. Just replace the Cult of the Dragon with Talons of Tiamat, and remove the bit about people being surprised at the Cult's abandonment of old-school dracoliches (because that was never a thing for the Talons).




I'm aware that Tiamat exists, but her association with dragons, and the fact that Eberron dragons just don't act the same way as other dragons, leave me weary to use her or dragons in general that much. I really wanted to approach it with a different sealed evil in a can. I'll have to give Rise of Tiamat a serious read before making up my mind, but so far I'm really liking the new direction I'm taking it in. The basic questions I'm asking as I read through the AP is how this is fundamentally different being set in Eberron, and for me that starts first and foremost with "dragons".

Meanwhile, I'm fairly certain that the Elemental Evil AP will fit in quite nicely.


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## lvl20dm (Jan 2, 2015)

This adventure might be more setting neutral than Tyranny of Dragons. They've got solid talent working on the adventure, and I anticipate good things in the Adventurer's Guide. Hopefully this is where we will see the Storm Sorcerer (it's mentioned in the PHB) and perhaps Genasi or even Shai'ar.


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## Parmandur (Jan 2, 2015)

Mistwell said:


> I think you overdid the acronyms  OP usually means Original Post, or Over Powered.  Given that, I have no idea what you just said.  Nor am I sure what inToD means.  At least I know what MMO means.





Organized Play, Tyranny of Dragons.  I post on this forum from a phone, dude 

Anyways, the point is that for purposes of cross-media tie-ins, a stated goal of the story-centric model the designers have been touting, Forgotten Realms has a lot going for it.  Primarily, existing across media.


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## Parmandur (Jan 2, 2015)

lvl20dm said:


> This adventure might be more setting neutral than Tyranny of Dragons. They've got solid talent working on the adventure, and I anticipate good things in the Adventurer's Guide. Hopefully this is where we will see the Storm Sorcerer (it's mentioned in the PHB) and perhaps Genasi or even Shai'ar.





If it ends up being primarily dungeon-based (potentially, megadungeon), then setting is fairly indifferent.  And their talk about Elemental Evil in the PHB (Ranger, Druid entries), the MM (Aarocka, Azer?), and the DMG (all up in the planar section), they seem to be angling for a multiplanar threat here.


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## Blackbrrd (Jan 3, 2015)

Jester Canuck said:


> Three thoughts:
> 
> 1) I expected the title to be "_Elemental Evil Adventurer's Handbook_" not just "_Adventurer's Handbook_". The latter sounds far too generic and not storyline specific with the title being so large and the little corner logo being so small. It will be harder to have an _Adventurer's Handbook_ for other Adventure Paths without possible confusion.
> I imagine this accessory *could* be a little more generic to serve as your standard splatbook in addition to player sourcebook on elemental evils. But that's a little lame when elemental power is such a cool theme in and of itself. There's nothing in the cover or title that screams "this is the book if you want to make an elemental themed character!!"
> ...



I am tired of the splat book train and will skip the book entirely and am a bit disappointed that they are already going down that path. On the positive side, I think 5e did a splendid job of creating a PHB that actually feels like a complete set of options for character creation. 

I was hoping for more free standing adventures like Madness at Gardmoore Abbey or Reavers of Harkenworld. 5e started out really well when it comes to adventure support with the Starter Set, but following it up with two adventure paths isn't what I am looking. 4e had some awful adventure paths and it looks like 5e is following that trend (ok, not awful, but not really good either).

My current hope is for a license that let's third party publishers know where they stand, so they can actually create the adventures that could fill the gap for me, and probably a lot of other DM's that aren't fond of adventure paths.


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## Jester David (Jan 3, 2015)

Blackbrrd said:


> I am tired of the splat book train and will skip the book entirely and am a bit disappointed that they are already going down that path. On the positive side, I think 5e did a splendid job of creating a PHB that actually feels like a complete set of options for character creation.



I'm pretty tired as well, but two books a year isn't *that* bad, especially if they're really thematic and only half the book is a standard splatbook. Tying the splatbooks to large bi-annual adventures is a good idea from that perspective, as you can play with just the PHB and the one other splatbook just fine. 



Blackbrrd said:


> I was hoping for more free standing adventures like Madness at Gardmoore Abbey or Reavers of Harkenworld. 5e started out really well when it comes to adventure support with the Starter Set, but following it up with two adventure paths isn't what I am looking. 4e had some awful adventure paths and it looks like 5e is following that trend (ok, not awful, but not really good either).



Well, this looks less like an adventure path and more like a 1-15ish super adventure. So the WotC strategy seems to be two big adventures every year. Smaller stand alone books would be nice, and there's still time for WotC to produce those. But I imagine they might consider the D&D Expeditions encounters to be those. Or any of the myriad adventures on D&D Classics. There are years of games available digitally, and there's going to be content that even the most dedicated D&Der won't have heard of. 

It should be noted that this adventure is being written/produced by Sasquatch Games, founded by the designer who wrote the Starter Set adventure. So if you liked that, you might like this adventure more. 



Blackbrrd said:


> My current hope is for a license that let's third party publishers know where they stand, so they can actually create the adventures that could fill the gap for me, and probably a lot of other DM's that aren't fond of adventure paths.



That would be cool too.


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## Mistwell (Jan 3, 2015)

Blackbrrd said:


> I am tired of the splat book train and will skip the book entirely and am a bit disappointed that they are already going down that path. On the positive side, I think 5e did a splendid job of creating a PHB that actually feels like a complete set of options for character creation.
> 
> I was hoping for more free standing adventures like Madness at Gardmoore Abbey or Reavers of Harkenworld. 5e started out really well when it comes to adventure support with the Starter Set, but following it up with two adventure paths isn't what I am looking. 4e had some awful adventure paths and it looks like 5e is following that trend (ok, not awful, but not really good either).




You know these adventure paths are not from WOTC, right? This is all stuff that was licensed out, this one from Sasquatch Studios.  The only adventure WOTC has published for 5e IS the starter set.  Well, and some good stand-alone adventures for the playtest D&D Next.  Even the splatbook isn't from WOTC.


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## Morrus (Jan 3, 2015)

Mistwell said:


> You know these adventure paths are not from WOTC, right? This is all stuff that was licensed out, this one from Sasquatch Studios.  The only adventure WOTC has published for 5e IS the starter set.  Well, and some good stand-alone adventures for the playtest D&D Next.  Even the splatbook isn't from WOTC.




They are designed by other companies, but they are published by WotC.


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## JTorres (Jan 3, 2015)

Parmandur said:


> If it ends up being primarily dungeon-based (potentially, megadungeon), then setting is fairly indifferent.  And their talk about Elemental Evil in the PHB (Ranger, Druid entries), the MM (Aarocka, Azer?), and the DMG (all up in the planar section), they seem to be angling for a multiplanar threat here.




I like this track of thought.  After the Corruption in Kryptgarden event (hundreds of players simultaneously working towards the same goal) at this past Gen Con, I can see the Princes AP being a set-up for a multi-plane adventure path that kicks-off with a Gen Con 2015 mega-event: a couple hundred players in Faerun, another similar group in Sigil, and still another group of adventurers in another plane (maybe Oerth?) all working towards taking down one major villain or some cabal of villains from across the multiverse.  After all, there certainly have been enough references to Sigil and the Manual of Planes in the core books to stoke curiosity.


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## pukunui (Jan 3, 2015)

Mistwell said:


> You know these adventure paths are not from WOTC, right? This is all stuff that was licensed out, this one from Sasquatch Studios.  The only adventure WOTC has published for 5e IS the starter set.  Well, and some good stand-alone adventures for the playtest D&D Next.  Even the splatbook isn't from WOTC.



WotC hasn't licensed out these adventures. They've merely contracted out the writing. They're still WotC adventures. WotC has written the story bibles, WotC oversees the writing and editing, WotC publishes them, etc etc.


Also, I've noticed everyone keeps referring to Tharizdun / the Elder Elemental Eye. Has there been some sort of confirmation that that is what this AP is about? I don't know why, but I got the impression it was more about the archomentals, the evil elemental princes (eg. Ogrémoch, Cryonax, etc).


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## Barachiel (Jan 3, 2015)

While the Realms has the Elder Elemental Evil in the form of Ghaunadar I don't understand why the four elemental gods (or primals, whatever you wanna call them now), Kossuth, Ishtishia, Grumbar, and Akadi, aren't involved in this somehow? There is so much Realms material to pull from, yet they insist on using the typical tropes (Tiamat and now Elemental Evil). 

Instead of sticking these in the Realms, what was so wrong with making it a neutral setting and then releasing an online PDF for free that had campaign conversions? Like what they did with Dungeon Magazine's Adventure Paths for the FR and Eberron settings?


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## Mirtek (Jan 3, 2015)

pukunui said:


> Also, I've noticed everyone keeps referring to Tharizdun / the Elder Elemental Eye. Has there been some sort of confirmation that that is what this AP is about? I don't know why, but I got the impression it was more about the archomentals, the evil elemental princes (eg. Ogrémoch, Cryonax, etc).



In 3e and 4e the evil archomentals were servants of the elder elemental eye


Barachiel said:


> While the Realms has the Elder Elemental Evil in the form of Ghaunadar I don't understand why the four elemental gods (or primals, whatever you wanna call them now), Kossuth, Ishtishia, Grumbar, and Akadi, aren't involved in this somehow?



 As greater deities they are so much more powerful than the archomentals that they are mostly ignoring them. They're just no threat to their supremacy


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## pukunui (Jan 3, 2015)

Mirtek said:


> In 3e and 4e the evil archomentals were servants of the elder elemental eye



Ah. I wasn't aware of that. Is there a good chance that this AP will feature both Tharizdun and the archomentals then?


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## Mirtek (Jan 3, 2015)

pukunui said:


> Ah. I wasn't aware of that. Is there a good chance that this AP will feature both Tharizdun and the archomentals then?



 I would think so


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## Henry (Jan 3, 2015)

lyle.spade said:


> Did you know that you can just put these - or any! - adventures in any world you'd like? Seriously. You can. The WOTC folks won't ever know...



Sure -- if I wanted an adventure that was themed more for Krynn or Oerth. If I want an adventure that runs with the themes that are representative of Faerun, I don't want either of these. I refuse this business of shoehorning in the Elder Elemental Eye and Krynnish Tiamat themes just because someone wants them to fit in the Realms. Faerun has quite enough lore by itself that is recognizable without needing to shoehorn in another world's villains and threats. It's just a very quirky choice given how much trouble they've gone to to go back to the well for the game, only to kit bash one world's themes into another just because someone thought it looked cool.

Then again, it'll be a while before I get to run a game, so what do I know.


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## Hereticus (Jan 3, 2015)

If you're a creative DM, move it to a different setting.


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## chibi graz'zt (Jan 3, 2015)

Can you say Aasimar?!? 
Gorgeous covers, amazing how this artwork is really redefining D&D like no other edition. 

One word: Epic.


----------



## chibi graz'zt (Jan 3, 2015)

Barachiel said:


> While the Realms has the Elder Elemental Evil in the form of Ghaunadar I don't understand why the four elemental gods (or primals, whatever you wanna call them now), Kossuth, Ishtishia, Grumbar, and Akadi, aren't involved in this somehow? There is so much Realms material to pull from, yet they insist on using the typical tropes (Tiamat and now Elemental Evil).
> 
> Instead of sticking these in the Realms, what was so wrong with making it a neutral setting and then releasing an online PDF for free that had campaign conversions? Like what they did with Dungeon Magazine's Adventure Paths for the FR and Eberron settings?




Because the Realms *IS* the quintessential setting now


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## Twiggly the Gnome (Jan 3, 2015)

chibi graz'zt said:


> Because the Realms *IS* the quintessential setting now




WE ARE THE REALMS. WE WILL ADD YOUR THEMATIC AND NARRATIVE  DISTINCTIVENESS TO OUR OWN. YOUR SETTING WILL ADAPT TO SERVICE US. RESISTANCE IS FUTILE.


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## pukunui (Jan 3, 2015)

Twiggly the Gnome said:


> WE ARE THE REALMS. WE WILL ADD YOUR THEMATIC AND NARRATIVE  DISTINCTIVENESS TO OUR OWN. YOUR SETTING WILL ADAPT TO SERVICE US. RESISTANCE IS FUTILE.



What I find ironic is how everyone is acting like this is a new thing. Weren't the very first FR novels - the Moonshae books - originally meant to take place in their own world rather than the Realms?


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## gyor (Jan 3, 2015)

Yes, heck its part of the theme of the realms from the beginning, Mulhorand was influenced by Conan, and I guess by extension Thay. Stygia to be specific. It ate the Moonshaes. It ate Kara-Tur from Oriental Adventures, Mazeteca, Al-Qadim. It connected to both the Nentir Vale and Athlas (Darksun) via the the Abyssal Plague books. I don't remember the older series, but there was a trilogy that connected the realms to Dragonlance and Planescape. Heck it even built another world for the purpose of eating, Abier. The Gloomwrought book was originally for the Nentir Vale setting, but it ate that too. Evermeet ate Spelljammers. There are domains in Ravenloft from the realms and now that the domains of dread are a default part of the Shadowfell, it ate Ravenloft in turn.

 Heck its not even limited to D&D products. Kalamar's gods have a pact with the gods of FR to grant each others followers spells when they are in the other gods world. Sharess and the Vicelord for example aside from having very different moral positions have a deal to support the worshippers of the other other god. 

 Realms comics at one point I believe where written by DC comics, which connects it to the DC universe, which at one time was connected and united with the marvel universe, and marvel had a novel called Planet X that was a crossover between Star Trek and the Marvel Universe.


 Mystara and Birthright should be afraid, the realms is still hunger, and they look so tasty, and protected. And Starwars and Stargate, well those would make a nice nearby galaxies that could be connected to the realms via Imaskari Portals, and the Wheel of Time world, well the Shadowfell could no doubt have a path straight to the darkones prison, sure it makes little sense and copyright and all that, but the realms is hungery and won't be denied. Actually there was that World of Darkness D&D book wasn't there and Ravenloft was published by White Wolf for a time. And the New World of Darkness and the Old World of Darkness has some connections I believe. 

 The realms is hungry and coming for an IP/Setting near you.

 Mawahahahahahahahahaha. Resistance is futile in deed.


----------



## gyor (Jan 3, 2015)

chibi graz'zt said:


> Can you say Aasimar?!?
> Gorgeous covers, amazing how this artwork is really redefining D&D like no other edition.
> 
> One word: Epic.




 How do you know either of the Characters are Aasimar? The one with wings looks like a Raptoran perhaps. It would still be cool to have Aasimar in official player book instead just trapped in the DMG.


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## gyor (Jan 3, 2015)

Thanks to the Abyssal Plague Tharizdun already has servants in the Forgotten Realms and a Deva of the 4e kind fighting it, whose was first written about in another setting, Netar Vale or Oeth or something I'm not sure. Tharizdun's plots span worlds apparently.


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## Scrivener of Doom (Jan 3, 2015)

Personally, I don't mind stealing stuff from other worlds for use in the Realms - I've been doing it for 20+ years - but I hope this one feels a lot more Realmsian than the _Dragons of Eberron_-inspired _Tyranny of Dragons_. (Seriously, read _Dragons of Eberron_. The whole Daughter of Khyber storyline seems to have been been adapted to FR.)

And I do think this will be much better than _Tyranny of Dragons_ for at least a couple of reasons:

- Rich Baker is a much better adventure designer and has a good grasp of FR.
- This time the contracted designers won't be being treated like mushrooms - kept in the dark and fed "leftovers" - while WotC keeps revising the ruleset. At least Rich _et al_ will have a stable set of rules to work from which, I imagine, will help a lot.


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## FormerlyHemlock (Jan 3, 2015)

Giltonio_Santos said:


> So, it's official now. *The Elder Elemental Eye has been somehow released from The World of Greyhawk to unleash havoc in the Realms.* No fantasy world was described in more detail than the Forgotten Realms, and they still manage to produce not one, but _two_ storylines in a row with themes and antagonists that have nothing to do with the Realms. Good job, Wizards.




I'm sure it is somehow the fault of all the 5E Great Old One warlocks.  Little do they know that every time they cast a spell, the Apocalypse draws nearer...


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## Henry (Jan 3, 2015)

gyor said:


> The realms is hungry and coming for an IP/Setting near you.
> 
> Mawahahahahahahahahaha. Resistance is futile in deed.




_*Lex Luthor:* i have you now, Superman! My kryptonite death ray cannot be stopped! A-HAHAHAHA!
*Superman:* weakening... Can't stop... Must...
Lex: you have no hope!
**POP**
*Elminster:* well, Lad, he has me. *Power Word Stun*
*Luthor:* AGH!
*Elminster: * *Disintegrates the kryptonite* well met, Clark! Laddie, ye can'st let a piddle poor rock stand in yer way, boy! I've been to the Hells, and it didn't stop me!
*Superman:* what... Who ARE you?!? And how do you know...
*Elminster:* nothing a little Legend Lore couldn't solve, son! But no time now! Ye must come with me! 'Tis critical! *Teleport*
*Supes:* Wait! What -- where are we now?!
*Picard:* I'm Captain Jean-Luc Picard of the Starship Enterprise. Welcome, Mr. Kent. It is truly an Honor.
*Supes:* What, did someone write my secret identity on a men's stall, or something??
*Picard: *Mr. Kent, I am from what you know as the 24th Century. Your great deeds are a matter of record.
*Supes:* then why have you taken me here??
*Elminster*: It's your CHILDREN, Clark! Something's to be done about your KIDS!
_

BACK<----
TO THE REALMS


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## AmerginLiath (Jan 3, 2015)

emdw45 said:


> I'm sure it is somehow the fault of all the 5E Great Old One warlocks.  Little do they know that every time they cast a spell, the Apocalypse draws nearer...




...and *I* was going to blame it on Wild Sorcerer's reduction of the Weave to entropy, thus hastening the Heat Death of the Multiverse...


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## Sailor Moon (Jan 3, 2015)

Dire Bare said:


> Perhaps I'm missing some sarcasm here, but . . . the Realms IS a pretty generic world. It's why Greyhawk, Mystara, and even Dragonlance don't see much action, because they are ALL fairly generic worlds without much to distinguish themselves from each other. And the Realms has long been the most popular of the three, so it makes perfect sense for WotC to highlight the setting.
> 
> The storylines of Tyranny of Dragons and Elemental Evil are PERFECT matches for FR. Retreading the War of the Lance in Dragonlance does not excite me, retreading the Temple of Elemental Evil in Greyhawk does not excite me. But adapting those themes to a different setting, one that is EASY-PEASY to translate to any homebrew? That is interesting to me, and I suspect to a lot of other people too, despite the Internet Kvetching Team's best complaints.
> 
> ...




From this statement, I'm going to assume your knowledge of The Realms is limited. As well as what exactly generic fantasy is. 

The Forgotten Realms is high fantasy that covers many areas such as european, asian, middle eastern, egyptian, and south american influences. It has a fully established set of lore that dates back thousands of years. Greyhawk has it's own lore but it is considered to be generic fantasy. The Forgotten Realms is not something you can just drop something like this into because you run the risk of it not making sense. You can actually go back and follow the lore and timelines and see why something would not fit.


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## Sailor Moon (Jan 3, 2015)

I for one like to follow the Realms canon so I don't want it to be a dumping ground for this kind of thing. 

This is really going to turn a lot of Realms fans away from the setting who maybe thought about coming back.

Wizards still don't have a clue.


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## Plaguescarred (Jan 3, 2015)

Nice covers!

IIt look like instead of having Player's Handbook 2, 3 etc... we'll get a supplement book supporting campaigns adventure, like a set of options that ties to the theme and flavor of the storyline. I like the concept and think it may even help drive more sales for these splat books but giving them an additional purpose. Brilliant! 

Adventurer's Book: Elemental Evil  
Adventurer's Book: Alice's Wonderland
Adventurer's Book: Against the Giants 
etc...


source: http://www.nerdsonearth.com/2014/12/dungeons-dragons-5e-release-schedule-2018/


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## Mirtek (Jan 3, 2015)

gyor said:


> connected the realms to Dragonlance and Planescape. [...] Evermeet ate Spelljammers. There are domains in Ravenloft from the realms



 The whole point of Spelljammer and Planescape was that it was the space between the settings that connected them.

London is also connected to Washington DC insofar as you can go from London to Washington by plane in a few hours (just like you can planewalk or spelljamm from Toril to Oerth). That doesn't mean that White House Down should have been taken place in London


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## Shemeska (Jan 3, 2015)

the Jester said:


> They couldn't even get the details right when porting Tharizdun into the Realms- he/it is NOT imprisoned in the Abyss, but rather in the "demiplane of imprisonment", hidden away deep deep deep in the ether.




Tell me about it. I wrote up Tharizdun's demiplanar prison in 3.x, so it was a shame to see it and the earlier material I built upon ignored.

As for these modules, Rich Baker is quite talented, so it really all comes down to how much is imposed by WotC in terms of the setting assumptions. We'll see how it works out I suppose.


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## mouselim (Jan 3, 2015)

*What?!*



the Jester said:


> Yeah, had these not been set in the Realms, they would have been an almost sure-fire sell to me.
> 
> In the Realms? No interest.
> 
> For Christ's sake, the Temple of Elemental Evil, the Elder Elemental Eye and the whole elemental evil cult thing are all huge fixtures of Greyhawk. Sigh.




Say what?! These are set in the FR?!!?! OMG!! Why oh WHY? If they wanted materials, can't they create more instead of taking something that we fans cherish and warp it?

Let's see how it goes - hopefully, it will not be an utter flop like the previous series (and to think that I held such high hopes that I bought two copies (one for expected thrashing through use and one for shrink-wrap collection) of each book!).

Honestly, I found it strange that such a renowned author could have produce something that will tarnish his reputation as such...sigh - guess  happens.


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## mouselim (Jan 3, 2015)

Plaguescarred said:


> Nice covers!
> 
> IIt look like instead of having Player's Handbook 2, 3 etc... we'll get a supplement book supporting campaigns adventure, like a set of options that ties to the theme and flavor of the storyline. I like the concept and think it may even help drive more sales for these splat books but giving them an additional purpose. Brilliant!
> 
> ...




That just allows them to sell more books ...


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## IchneumonWasp (Jan 3, 2015)

mouselim said:


> That just allows them to sell more books ...




Isn't that a good thing? It would be in our advantage if WotC made a profit and D&D 5e was a financial success.


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## Morrus (Jan 3, 2015)

mouselim said:


> That just allows them to sell more books ...




What would you rather an RPG company sell, if not tabletop RPG books?  They're hardly in a position to move into an alternate business of interpretive mime!


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## lyle.spade (Jan 3, 2015)

IchneumonWasp said:


> Isn't that a good thing? It would be in our advantage if WotC made a profit and D&D 5e was a financial success.




Amen. I will not go around tearing at my clothes and covering myself in ash & dirt over a company trying to make a profit...profit that will enable said company to continue producing this game.

No one will force anyone to buy any of these books, folks.

You may now go back to your wailing and tooth-grinding.


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## mcbobbo (Jan 3, 2015)

Where on the covers of these two books are you people seeing the words 'Forgotten Realms'?


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## Remathilis (Jan 3, 2015)

They already said their first few adventures were Realms-specific, and that was for brand recognition. It was part of their big cross-marketing strategy. EE storyline is going to cross over AL (which must remain Realms focused for factions), Neverwinter MMO (set in realms), comics (the Baldur's Gate comic line) and novels. The fact its set in the Realms is a no-brainer.


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## Zaukrie (Jan 3, 2015)

I just want a good adventure.


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## Uder (Jan 3, 2015)

lyle.spade said:


> Amen. I will not go around tearing at my clothes and covering myself in ash & dirt over a company trying to make a profit...profit that will enable said company to continue producing this game.
> 
> No one will force anyone to buy any of these books, folks.
> 
> You may now go back to your wailing and tooth-grinding.




Yeah! They're killing babies with all their hyperbolic whining!

...

Wait. Who are you talking about? Or is it just a sermon?


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## Nareth (Jan 3, 2015)

Not seeing the problem here, or the reason for the Realms hate. If you want to move it, then do it. Realms is really only official for AL play as it stands at the moment. Aside from that, the entire Abyssal Plague storyline was about Tharizdun trying to get out of his prison by sending out what were essentially pieces of himself to the Realms, Athas, and Eberron. Things change, and even as a long time gamer, I acknowledge that sometimes things I loved in one setting need to migrate to be kept relevant.


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## gyor (Jan 3, 2015)

Shemeska said:


> Tell me about it. I wrote up Tharizdun's demiplanar prison in 3.x, so it was a shame to see it and the earlier material I built upon ignored.
> 
> As for these modules, Rich Baker is quite talented, so it really all comes down to how much is imposed by WotC in terms of the setting assumptions. We'll see how it works out I suppose.




 That wasn't changed specifically for the Abyssal Plague, Tharizdun's prison was reconned into being in the Abyss, made I believe from a Universe he destroyed. In fact according to general 4e lore Tharizdun was responsible for creating the Abyss by dropping a Shard of the Far Realms into the Elemental Chaos.

 I don't know where they're going to place Tharizdun in 5e, the Abyss is no longer dumped into the Elemental Chaos so that 4e story no longer works even though the Elemental Chaos still remains.

 It should be interesting.

 I think Adventurer's Handbook will be the first 5e book I will buy since the PHB.


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## Psyga315 (Jan 3, 2015)

Giltonio_Santos said:


> So, it's official now. The Elder Elemental Eye has been somehow released from The World of Greyhawk to unleash havoc in the Realms.




... Oh crap, what if someone had a hand in that and the second part of the adventure is to but the Eye back in Greyhawk and beat up the dude that took it out in the first place?


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## Zarithar (Jan 3, 2015)

Henry said:


> Sure -- if I wanted an adventure that was themed more for Krynn or Oerth. If I want an adventure that runs with the themes that are representative of Faerun, I don't want either of these. I refuse this business of shoehorning in the Elder Elemental Eye and Krynnish Tiamat themes just because someone wants them to fit in the Realms. Faerun has quite enough lore by itself that is recognizable without needing to shoehorn in another world's villains and threats. It's just a very quirky choice given how much trouble they've gone to to go back to the well for the game, only to kit bash one world's themes into another just because someone thought it looked cool.
> 
> Then again, it'll be a while before I get to run a game, so what do I know.




In case someone hasn't already pointed this out, Tiamat existed in AD&D long before Dragonlance was a thing. She was in the original Monster Manual along with Bahamut. Tiamat is not "Krynnish", but her aspect, Takhisis certainly is.


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## Blackbrrd (Jan 3, 2015)

Jester Canuck said:


> I'm pretty tired as well, but two books a year isn't *that* bad, especially if they're really thematic and only half the book is a standard splatbook. Tying the splatbooks to large bi-annual adventures is a good idea from that perspective, as you can play with just the PHB and the one other splatbook just fine.



I am not exactly raging here, but I had hoped they prioritized other material. Tools and options for the DM would have been my choice. I can see, from a short-term monetary view that they are going the right way.





Jester Canuck said:


> Well, this looks less like an adventure path and more like a 1-15ish super adventure. So the WotC strategy seems to be two big adventures every year. Smaller stand alone books would be nice, and there's still time for WotC to produce those. But I imagine they might consider the D&D Expeditions encounters to be those. Or any of the myriad adventures on D&D Classics. There are years of games available digitally, and there's going to be content that even the most dedicated D&Der won't have heard of.
> 
> It should be noted that this adventure is being written/produced by Sasquatch Games, founded by the designer who wrote the Starter Set adventure. So if you liked that, you might like this adventure more.
> 
> ...



I don't quite see the difference between a level 1-15 super adventure and five 3-level adventures in an adventure path. There might manage to make it a bit more sandboxy, but most likely, there will be a red thread (read: railroad) through the whole adventure (path) that will get a bit old after fifteen levels and feel constricting as a DM (if I want to use the whole adventure). I loved DM-ing Red Hand of Doom, but I skipped the last dungeon crawl part of it, so basically from level 6 to 10, or five levels. 

I really like the Starter set though. It does have it's quirks, but it's really easy to DM and let me run a game with minimal effort. With some effort, I could have modified the adventure to fit into any campaign I wanted to run.


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## gyor (Jan 3, 2015)

Morrus said:


> What would you rather an RPG company sell, if not tabletop RPG books?  They're hardly in a position to move into an alternate business of interpretive mime!




 You can't know that! ;p


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## Dire Bare (Jan 4, 2015)

the Jester said:


> Cite, please.
> 
> Or are you just assuming?




Cite? Heh, no. That was just me being realistic, not having any special insight into WotC's future plans. I won't be holding my breath waiting for a Dragonlance, Greyhawk, or better yet, Mystara release. Would love to be proved wrong though.


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## Dire Bare (Jan 4, 2015)

Sailor Moon said:


> From this statement, I'm going to assume your knowledge of The Realms is limited. As well as what exactly generic fantasy is.
> 
> The Forgotten Realms is high fantasy that covers many areas such as european, asian, middle eastern, egyptian, and south american influences. It has a fully established set of lore that dates back thousands of years. Greyhawk has it's own lore but it is considered to be generic fantasy. The Forgotten Realms is not something you can just drop something like this into because you run the risk of it not making sense. You can actually go back and follow the lore and timelines and see why something would not fit.




From your statement, I'm going to assume you like belittle others who disagree with you. I won't try to argue or compare our respective "realmslore" skill modifiers, but suffice to say, I disagree.

I'm not saying that there is no difference at all between the settings, there most certainly is. And it is more than just the shape of the maps and the names on them. But the Realms, Greyhawk, Blackmoor, Mystara, Nentir Vale, and probably some others I am missing are all different flavors of generic fantasy that are not hugely different from one another. If you have a favorite, that's cool. My favorite is Mystara. It's got some differences from the Realms and other settings that I like, but I'm not under the illusion that it is significantly different.

While I would love WotC to produce an adventure path with accompanying sourcebook for each and every one of their classic settings, it's just not realistic and it just isn't going to happen. In the meantime, if WotC publishes some books set in the Realms that borrow themes from Mystara, I will be excited rather than joining the incessant chorus of wailing and gnashing of teeth that occurs everytime WotC makes a decision.


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## pukunui (Jan 4, 2015)

Dire Bare said:


> Cite? Heh, no. That was just me being realistic, not having any special insight into WotC's future plans. I won't be holding my breath waiting for a Dragonlance, Greyhawk, or better yet, Mystara release. Would love to be proved wrong though.



I think most people are assuming that Dragonlance and the like have been put on the back burner based on what Chris Perkins said in that less than illuminating interview he did late last year: 

_"Anything is possible, but I can’t offer any predictions at this time. We’ll visit Krynn again when the stars align and we have the perfect Dragonlance story to tell."_


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## gweinel (Jan 4, 2015)

pukunui said:


> _"Anything is possible, but I can’t offer any predictions at this time. We’ll visit Krynn again *when the stars align* and we have the perfect Dragonlance story to tell."_




He didn't even said "when the moons align"...


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## Henry (Jan 4, 2015)

Zarithar said:


> In case someone hasn't already pointed this out, Tiamat existed in AD&D long before Dragonlance was a thing. She was in the original Monster Manual along with Bahamut. Tiamat is not "Krynnish", but her aspect, Takhisis certainly is.



True, but I've rarely known gamers who didn't associate Tiamat with one of two things: the D&D cartoon, and Dragonlance. A story called "war of the Dragon Queen" evokes Dragonlance to many people before it evokes "Forgotten Realms".


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## steeldragons (Jan 4, 2015)

Henry said:


> True, but I've rarely known gamers who didn't associate Tiamat with one of two things: the D&D cartoon, and Dragonlance. A story called "war of the Dragon Queen" evokes Dragonlance to many people before it evokes "Forgotten Realms".




This is very true.


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## MonsterEnvy (Jan 4, 2015)

Henry said:


> True, but I've rarely known gamers who didn't associate Tiamat with one of two things: the D&D cartoon, and Dragonlance. A story called "war of the Dragon Queen" evokes Dragonlance to many people before it evokes "Forgotten Realms".




I don't see many people associating Tiamat with Dragonlance as she is called Takhisis there. Tiamat has been a Forgotten Realms and Greyhawk god since the start and is considered to be a classic D&D villain. (She is even around in Ebberon.) 

She is not really associated with any setting really she is associated with D&D as a whole. And while a story called War of the Dragon Queen may invoke Dragonlance. Last I checked the adventures we just had featuring Tiamat were not called that. It was called Tyranny of Dragons which does not bring any setting to mind in my opinion.


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## Staffan (Jan 4, 2015)

Henry said:


> True, but I've rarely known gamers who didn't associate Tiamat with one of two things: the D&D cartoon, and Dragonlance. A story called "war of the Dragon Queen" evokes Dragonlance to many people before it evokes "Forgotten Realms".




I'm not a Dragonlance fan, but I've never associated Tiamat with Dragonlance. Dragonlance doesn't even have Tiamat, they have a lookalike called Takhisis.

I don't particularly associate Tiamat with Forgotten Realms either - she's just part of the generic draconic pantheon, which exists both in the Realms, Greyhawk, and even Eberron (which is otherwise pretty non-standard when it comes to divinity).


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## Staffan (Jan 4, 2015)

Sailor Moon said:


> From this statement, I'm going to assume your knowledge of The Realms is limited. As well as what exactly generic fantasy is.
> 
> The Forgotten Realms is high fantasy that covers many areas such as european, asian, middle eastern, egyptian, and south american influences. It has a fully established set of lore that dates back thousands of years. Greyhawk has it's own lore but it is considered to be generic fantasy. The Forgotten Realms is not something you can just drop something like this into because you run the risk of it not making sense. You can actually go back and follow the lore and timelines and see why something would not fit.




Here's the thing: Forgotten Realms, Greyhawk, Mystara, Dragonlance, and to some degree Eberron are like different brands of vanilla ice cream. They can be made slightly different due to proportion and quality of ingredients, but they're fundamentally similar. Dark Sun, Planescape, and Ravenloft are like chocolate, strawberry, and peach ice cream - fundamentally different.

Now, an ice cream connoisseur can probably tell the difference between different brands of vanilla ice cream. But if you're selling ice cream cones, would you rather be selling three different brands of vanilla ice cream, or would you have a selection of vanilla, strawberry, and chocolate?

_That's_ why the chances of Greyhawk, Mystara, and Dragonlance making a comeback any time soon are very low - Wizards already has a setting for swords & horses fantasy, so if they're going to expand to another they'll make it more different.


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## HobbitFan (Jan 4, 2015)

I think it would be great if WOTc released soemthing not tied to their adventure paths.  Having such a small number of releases and having all of them keyed to WOTC's adventure hardbacks doesn't give DMs anything if they don't want to run those stories.

That's pretty lame and it's not supporting the game properly.


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## guachi (Jan 4, 2015)

Bleh. I have a feeling that the DMG will be the last 5e product I purchase directly from WOTC.  FR (specfically, Faerun) is my least favorite D&D setting by far. The upside of knowing months in advance they won't be publishing anything I want is I've been busy buying stuff on ebay or dndclassics.

It just seems strange to come out with adventures but no updated setting material to back it up. Maybe WOTC has done some kind of marketing that says that an expensive hardback adventure is what people want.


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## tomservo999 (Jan 4, 2015)

Another apocalypse???


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## pukunui (Jan 4, 2015)

HobbitFan said:


> I think it would be great if WOTc released soemthing not tied to their adventure paths.  Having such a small number of releases and having all of them keyed to WOTC's adventure hardbacks doesn't give DMs anything if they don't want to run those stories.
> 
> That's pretty lame and it's not supporting the game properly.



I think you will find that the bulk of the content in the players' book will be generic enough to be of use to people not playing the accompanying adventure. Think of them as the latest in the evolution of the _Complete_ handbooks. 2e's were highly specific - only applying to a single class or race, for the most part (eg. _Complete Fighter's Handbook_, _Complete Book of Elves_). 3e's were slightly broader, by applying to all classes or races of a certain type (eg. _Complete Warrior_, _Races of Stone_, etc). 4e's were pretty much the same, except with different titles (eg. _Arcane Power_, _Primal Power_). Now you'll be getting books on broad themes that can apply to many races and classes. Think of this first one as being like _Complete Elemental_ or something.


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## Scrivener of Doom (Jan 4, 2015)

pukunui said:


> (snip) 4e's were pretty much the same, except with different titles (eg. _Arcane Power_, _Primal Power_). Now you'll be getting books on broad themes that can apply to many races and classes. Think of this first one as being like _Complete Elemental_ or something.




Until the end when we got _Heroes of Shadow_, _Heroes of the Feywild_, and _Heroes of the Elemental Chaos_. The latter two seemed to be almost universally praised so maybe WotC decided this was the way to do splat books in future? Of course, Paizo did the same thing first with their splat book support for their adventure paths....


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## SirAntoine (Jan 4, 2015)

"The Adventurer's Handbook" is not the right title for that book. It sounds like something that would apply to all characters, from all settings and campaigns. If they want to make an elemental evil-themed character creation book they should call it one!

As for their taking elemental evil to the Forgotten Realms, that is about as good as taking the most famous stuff from there to Greyhawk. I wish they would stick to the original settings, and systems. There are consumers interested in elemental evil and Greyhawk, and many of them still play 1st Edition. Why not release this for 1st Edition, and let everyone else who is interested convert it to their favorite edition instead of asking the original fans to convert it?


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## Scrivener of Doom (Jan 4, 2015)

SirAntoine said:


> (snip) There are consumers interested in elemental evil and Greyhawk, and many of them still play 1st Edition. Why not release this for 1st Edition, and let everyone else who is interested convert it to their favorite edition instead of asking the original fans to convert it?




Many?


I sincerely doubt that the 1E-playing market is anything but a fraction of the market for the new edition.

Further, there are at least two ways to ensure that the initial goodwill that accompanies the launch of a new edition is squandered:

1. Ask Mike Mearls to write _Keep on the Shadowfell_ and _Pyramid of Shadow_.
2. Release adventures for another edition other than the one you just published.

By contracting out the work to noted adventure designers, WotC has managed to avoid the former; surely you're not suggesting they embrace the latter particularly at a time there seems to be a bit of a clamour for more 5E products?


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## SirAntoine (Jan 4, 2015)

Well, Scrivener of Doom, I can't claim to know how many 1st Edition and Greyhawk enthusiasts there still are, but maybe fewer would have gone away over the years if the company didn't accept the second of your points, which I think is just a fallacy.  I have called for complete support of every edition from the beginning, and I am not about to stop.


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## Scrivener of Doom (Jan 4, 2015)

WotC has tested the market for 1E products with the deluxe reprints and clearly the market is not there or we would have seen more. I am sure your "I have called for... and I am not about to stop"-stance is well-meaning but I am sure it's not based on any sense of sound business principles.

Meanwhile, dndclassics.com is still alive and kicking, at least until another corporate lawyer for Hasbro steps up and makes another silly decision....


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## aramis erak (Jan 4, 2015)

Scrivener of Doom said:


> WotC has tested the market for 1E products with the deluxe reprints and clearly the market is not there or we would have seen more. I am sure your "I have called for... and I am not about to stop"-stance is well-meaning but I am sure it's not based on any sense of sound business principles.




At the prices, most of the people who would be interested weren't going to spend the money. After all, used copies are going for about original cover on ebay....


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## SirAntoine (Jan 4, 2015)

Sometimes the smallest person can change the course of the future.


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## Raith5 (Jan 4, 2015)

HobbitFan said:


> I think it would be great if WOTc released soemthing not tied to their adventure paths.  Having such a small number of releases and having all of them keyed to WOTC's adventure hardbacks doesn't give DMs anything if they don't want to run those stories.
> 
> That's pretty lame and it's not supporting the game properly.




Yeah I dont understand why there is this emphasis on large mega adventures/APs or on the necessity of having a default setting. As a player, long adventures bore the hell out of me and if I DM, I want a world that has a flavour to it (either supplied or homemade). When I look at FR, I cant help that making a setting the default one inherently bleaches any distinctiveness of it. I dont see what is wrong with making setting neutral adventures with a section which gives some ideas as to where is could be located in the various worlds of the D&D game.


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## SirAntoine (Jan 4, 2015)

Hobbitfan and Raith5, you're both really right.  I think the reason Wizards of the Coast is doing it is they're trying to give the D&D brand popularity through these settings.  They are like trying to force it to be popular for everyone, though, when they should be marketing such writing to the particular fans of the settings and focusing on the rules for everyone to use.  The target audience for an elemental evil adventure, in my opinion, is not every FR fan or every D&D fan, but certain old Greyhawk and old AD&D fans.


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## MerricB (Jan 4, 2015)

I finished running Hoard of the Dragon Queen last night. My group will begin Rise of Tiamat next week. Given that Ed Greenwood was writing about Tiamat in 1983 (his tremendously important articles on the Nine Hells) and that Tiamat herself in D&D predates Dragonlance by several years, I've had no problem with the current FR storyline.

Are the adventures FR stories? Yes, yes they are. The fact is that running them in Krynn would feel utterly wrong. Even running them in Greyhawk would feel wrong to me (and most of my home games in the last 20 years have been set there). And the reason that they are Realms stories is because they take advantage of the characters and societies of the Realms.

I've read a lot of adventures that you could set anywhere, including more than a few that are allegedly set in a particular world. I could conceivably set Hoard on another world, but Rise has so many links to the Realms that changing its location would rip out too much for me to consider it worthwhile. 

Now, the Temple of Elemental Evil is entirely a Greyhawk thing, with - in particular - the ties to Iuz and Tsuggtmoy and Prince Thrommel cementing its place there. (Although, to be honest, most of the adventure itself is pretty generic). Tharizdun? Originally Greyhawk. Very much so, although his use in the 4E setting was done extremely well. I've nothing against lifting something originally from one setting to use in another as long as it's done well. The Vault of the Drow and Lolth might have started out in Greyhawk, but far more has been done with them in the Forgotten Realms than ever was done in Greyhawk.

And so we get to the Elder Elemental Eye in the Forgotten Realms. Yeah, I'm a bit conflicted about that. (I'm also very much not a fan of conflating Tharizdun and the Elder Elemental God, although I can well see how it happened.) Using Tharizdun in the Realms first occurred during 4E as part of the Abyssal Plague cross-setting storyline, which I pretty much missed as I was not running D&D Encounters at that stage nor reading the novels. The novel is Sword of the Gods by Bruce Cordell, the adventure is The Elder Elemental Eye. The adventure is pretty dull, although it has one or two redeeming features.

I *am* a big fan of using the Princes of Elemental Evil, though. They are not a part of the original Temple of Elemental Evil design, and only Imix makes an appearance in Monte Cook's 3E revisit of the temple. (I added one or two more when I ran the temple as part of a 4E conversion last year). I think they're criminally underused, and I'd really like to see them appear in this adventure - or at least get referred to.

Ultimately, I'm in a "wait and see" mode. I'm fine with extra elements being added to the Realms, if they're done well. And I'm far more interested in seeing what the people and factions of the Realms do in response than just thinking "this would be better in Greyhawk". 

(Indeed, if we ever see new Greyhawk material, it needs to do a lot more on setting up the personality of the world than has been seen in many Greyhawk adventures...)

Cheers!


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## SirAntoine (Jan 4, 2015)

Makes me feel like they are snubbing their noses at the story and characters of Greyhawk, and just want to milk it for the things they like, but you're very insightful there, MerricB. Most players who have really participated in all the modern stuff would probably agree with you.


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## Staffan (Jan 4, 2015)

Meh, good ideas are good ideas, I say. I'm all in favor of taking the cool things from a variety of settings and making them work together in one, as long as they work in that one setting.

That is, I'm totally uninterested in the question "Can we take this thing from Greyhawk?" Of course you can. What's more interesting is "Can we make this thing work in FR?"


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## SirAntoine (Jan 4, 2015)

They owe Greyhawk about 20 years of setting support.  With that in mind, celebrating it along with the release of their next adventure is logical, easy, and pleasing to the fans.


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## Scrivener of Doom (Jan 4, 2015)

SirAntoine said:


> They owe Greyhawk about 20 years of setting support.  With that in mind, celebrating it along with the release of their next adventure is logical, easy, and pleasing to the fans.




Owe? Again, this is basic business: if there was demand for Greyhawk products, I am sure those products would be produced. Clearly WotC has determined that their best bet in this industry is to focus on FR right now. Greyhawk obviously doesn't sell well enough to enjoy support.


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## SirAntoine (Jan 4, 2015)

If they had tried and failed, then they would be able to say that, but they haven't.


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## Scrivener of Doom (Jan 4, 2015)

SirAntoine said:


> If they had tried and failed, then they would be able to say that, but they haven't.




Yes, tried and failed in 1E, 2E, and 3E. 

I suppose they've learnt not to flog that dead horse any more....


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## SirAntoine (Jan 4, 2015)

You can be funny.


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## gweinel (Jan 4, 2015)

It is interesting that they have created a ton of Realm Lore through setting products, books, comics, pc games, etc and they used nothing of it. They just grabbed elemental evil from greyhawk and the dragon queen - the archvillain - from dragonlance and put em in the realms. I can see the logic in their decision (eclectism) but i find it a poor choice with a result to annoy the fans of dragonlance and greyhawk. Someone would say that Wizards weren't satisfied enough with the lore of the realms and borrowed from elsewhere.


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## Henry (Jan 4, 2015)

MerricB said:


> Are the adventures FR stories? Yes, yes they are. The fact is that running them in Krynn would feel utterly wrong. Even running them in Greyhawk would feel wrong to me (and most of my home games in the last 20 years have been set there). And the reason that they are Realms stories is because they take advantage of the characters and societies of the Realms.
> 
> 
> Cheers!



Maybe I just need to get and read the tyranny of Dragons books, but according to reviews:
[sblock]it's the Cult of the Dragon trying to help Tiamat win? Thing is, they've never been associated with Tiamat before, they've always been focused on making all dragons Dracoliches, and when they lost Sammaster they even picked up a Dracolich as their leader. Switching allegiances to Tiamat just makes no sense to me; plus, Ed's written about Tiamat before, but she's made almost no impact in FR products before. Reading several reviews, it just feels so shoehorned to me.[/sblock]


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## MerricB (Jan 4, 2015)

Henry said:


> Maybe I just need to get and read the tyranny of Dragons books, but according to reviews:
> [sblock]it's the Cult of the Dragon trying to help Tiamat win? Thing is, they've never been associated with Tiamat before, they've always been focused on making all dragons Dracoliches, and when they lost Sammaster they even picked up a Dracolich as their leader. Switching allegiances to Tiamat just makes no sense to me; plus, Ed's written about Tiamat before, but she's made almost no impact in FR products before. Reading several reviews, it just feels so shoehorned to me.[/sblock]




The reason I like it so much is because it's brilliant - the reasoning behind it works really well.

[sblock]The Cult of the Dragon was always based on an erroneous reading of a prophecy. The relevant passage is generally translated:

"naught will be left save shuttered thrones with no rulers but the dead. Dragons shall rule the world entire"

except by the cult, which has it as:

"naught will be left save shuttered thrones with no rulers. But the dead dragons shall rule the world entire"

So, Dracoliches. And thus the Cult has continued for the past several hundred years.

Tyranny of Dragons has one of the rising stars of the cult think, "Hang on, this isn't working - we raise these dracoliches, and things still go wrong", so he goes back to the prophecy, and realises that perhaps the cult's founder had it wrong. He's a charismatic chap, and he manages to persuade a bunch of other cultists that perhaps they should be helping living dragons rule and not the dead ones. And Tiamat notices him and starts offering help, in particular, the five masks of the dragon.

And so, with these major artifacts, he gets even more of the cult under his control, and starts planning the dominion of dragons, which will culminate with the release of Tiamat from the Nine Hells. The adventure talks about her being imprisoned there, which actually fits not that badly - as you said, it's not like she's been very active on Faerun - but as I like gods having real trouble coming to the Prime Material Plane, it works fine with me in any case.

What's really nice about the adventures is that although the new cult leader has most of the cult going with him, there are a number of old-timers who think he's nuts and want to go back to the good old days of making dracoliches![/sblock]

Cheers!


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## Scrivener of Doom (Jan 4, 2015)

Actually, the Cult of the Dragon deciding to embrace Tiamat is not an issue with Realmslore -there have been hints before about Tiamat wanting to get control of the Cult - but the issue is that Tiamat is suddenly a prisoner in the hells and needs to be freed. Now that's out of the blue and unrelated to - and even contradicts - existing Realmslore.

But I get it. It has lots of dragons and this is D&*D*. And Tiamat is a popular BBEG who has has featured in at least three editions, one that was botched (4E's pseudo-adventure path _Scales of War_), one that has a lot of nostalgia attached (_Dragonlance_... oh, and those horrid cartoons), and one that was genuinely well done (_Red Hand of Doom_).


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## Henry (Jan 4, 2015)

I get what you're saying, [MENTION=3586]MerricB[/MENTION] . It just feels a bit too artificial to me, given the dozens of other Realms-specific villains available, but I can definitely agree it's consistent enough.

It's almost like someone bringing out Camazotz The Bat God as a main Greyhawk villain for a major story arc because he was referenced one time in module C1, ignoring Iuz, Rary, the Scarlet Brotherhood, and Iggwilv as major threats. (or, more like having to ally with Iuz because Camazotz is the bigger threat.) Some might find it works, but I'm like, why ignore the low hanging apples to go for the wispy little one at the top?


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## SirAntoine (Jan 4, 2015)

It's also a low level adventure.


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## Sailor Moon (Jan 4, 2015)

MerricB said:


> The reason I like it so much is because it's brilliant - the reasoning behind it works really well.
> 
> [sblock]The Cult of the Dragon was always based on an erroneous reading of a prophecy. The relevant passage is generally translated:
> 
> ...




What reasoning?

You have a goddess that was never trapped but suddenly is. Also, while Tiamat is interested in the Cult, most of it's members are not and the Dark Queen's plans were thwarted left and right. So now suddenly the Cult of the Dragon has open arms for her without any write up to the lead up of this event. 

It's way too forced and frankly cheapens the Realms.


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## DEFCON 1 (Jan 4, 2015)

Sailor Moon said:


> What reasoning?
> 
> You have a goddess that was never trapped but suddenly is. Also, while Tiamat is interested in the Cult, most of it's members are not and the Dark Queen's plans were thwarted left and right. So now suddenly the Cult of the Dragon has open arms for her without any write up to the lead up of this event.
> 
> It's way too forced and frankly cheapens the Realms.




A couple things on this score...

I'm not up on Realmslore for the most part, but was Tiamat ever referenced in any of the 4E Realms products?  Because if she wasn't... then the idea that she was never trapped but then "suddenly" was... could be called into question since we'd have no way of knowing what happened to her in the 100 year jump.  For all we know... her capture and imprisonment had a century to occur and did.

As for the second point... I know it won't matter much to those of you who don't play in any of the Encounters, Expeditions, or Epics adventures through the Adventurer's League... but in fact the first Epic, _Corruption In Kryptgarden_, does reference the both side of the Cult of the Dragon, the old dracolich contingent and the new Tiamat contingent-- and that both sides of the Cult are in conflict in trying to push their agenda through the adventure.

So truth be told, the Cult hasn't actually done a complete 180, its more that a newer wing of the Cult had decided that the whole dracolich thing wasn't working or successful, and which is why they were advancing a new cause.  Granted, if none of you play those adventures, all that lore and backstory is generally lost... at least until a new FR setting book gets written and the section on the Cult goes into it.


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## Mirtek (Jan 4, 2015)

DEFCON 1 said:


> I'm not up on Realmslore for the most part, but was Tiamat ever referenced in any of the 4E Realms products?  Because if she wasn't... then the idea that she was never trapped but then "suddenly" was... could be called into question since we'd have no way of knowing what happened to her in the 100 year jump.  For all we know... her capture and imprisonment had a century to occur and did.



 She was referenced and resided on Banehold (moving there from her former lair in Dragon Eyrie where she moved from her older realm in Hell) as of the 1470s. 

In the latest Brimstone Angels novel we learn that she has recently moved back to Avernus, but no word of her being traped. So by mid 1480s she's back in hell but not a prisoner yet (a group of powerful devils working at behest of Glasya and Asmodeus still have to pay her to be allowed passage through her realm in hell). Even if she already were a prisoner that makes her imprisonment only a couple of years long, not centuries


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## Wolfskin (Jan 4, 2015)

Wasn't the Cult turning to worship Tiamat somewhere in the 3e FRCS? In the Well of Dragons entry, IIRC-don't have the book with me, I had to sell it a few years ago


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## tomservo999 (Jan 5, 2015)

Wolfskin said:


> Wasn't the Cult turning to worship Tiamat somewhere in the 3e FRCS? In the Well of Dragons entry, IIRC-don't have the book with me, I had to sell it a few years ago




According to the 3rd Edition FRCs, there are few clerics in the the Cult of the Dragon. The majority of those worship Bane, Shar, Talona, Talos, or Velsharoon. A smaller number worship Cyric, Gargauth, Malar or Tiamat. 

The 4e FRCS does not mention what god cultists have a predilection towards.


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## Staffan (Jan 5, 2015)

Wolfskin said:


> Wasn't the Cult turning to worship Tiamat somewhere in the 3e FRCS? In the Well of Dragons entry, IIRC-don't have the book with me, I had to sell it a few years ago




Nothing about that in the FRCS. The Well of Dragons mentions nothing at all about gods, and the writeup of the Cult says that most worship Bane, Shar, Talona, Talos, or Velsharoon, but some instead follow Cyric, Gargauth, Malar, or Tiamat.


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## AverageCitizen (Jan 5, 2015)

Scrivener of Doom said:


> Owe? Again, this is basic business: if there was demand for Greyhawk products, I am sure those products would be produced. Clearly WotC has determined that their best bet in this industry is to focus on FR right now. Greyhawk obviously doesn't sell well enough to enjoy support.




It seems likely they are doing FR because Drizzt is pretty the only thing that sells well outside of the hobby niche these days. If we want Greyhawk support, someone is gonna have to write a bang-up Greyhawk novel.


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## Parmandur (Jan 5, 2015)

Rise of Tiamat does mention at some point that the nature of Tiamat being trapped is actually secret knowledge, previously unknown to common mortals; all her previous activity is called out as being limited by her stay in Avernus, which is why it is very, very bad if she success.


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## Inchoroi (Jan 5, 2015)

I dunno.

I showed these covers to a few friends, and I started running the Starter Set for them just a few weeks later. One of the players even wants to be the DM for the new adventure, and actually already bought the PHB, MM, and DMG for that purpose. 

So, I'm not going to complain at all, especially since HotDQ was somewhat lackluster, to say the least (salvageable, though, if you didn't mind multiple prep days beforehand). Given that its written by people who have a passing familiarity with the guy that wrote the starter set, I'll give them a benefit of the doubt for the adventure. The only thing I'm worried about is the mechanical balance of the character options in the Adventurer's Handbook--splatbooks have a history of upsetting the balance of the core classes.

Those covers, even though they don't really scream "Elemental Evil" to me, are still quite awesome on many levels.


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## FormerlyHemlock (Jan 5, 2015)

Scrivener of Doom said:


> Many?
> 
> 
> I sincerely doubt that the 1E-playing market is anything but a fraction of the market for the new edition.




I think Sir Antoine was speaking tongue-in-cheek. (If not, then Poe's Law applies.)


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## Staffan (Jan 5, 2015)

Inchoroi said:


> The only thing I'm worried about is the mechanical balance of the character options in the Adventurer's Handbook--splatbooks have a history of upsetting the balance of the core classes.



My hope is that since 5e generally focuses on fewer but bigger choices compared to 3e/PF (Pathfinder rogue: choose a talent every other level; 5e rogue: At level 3, choose Thief, Assassin, or Arcane Trickster), it will be easier to balance those choices since you can do them as a "package deal." Also, since one choice is mutually exclusive with the others, you don't need to watch out for weird synergies.


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## aramis erak (Jan 5, 2015)

MerricB said:


> I finished running Hoard of the Dragon Queen last night. My group will begin Rise of Tiamat next week. Given that Ed Greenwood was writing about Tiamat in 1983 (his tremendously important articles on the Nine Hells) and that Tiamat herself in D&D predates Dragonlance by several years, I've had no problem with the current FR storyline.
> 
> Are the adventures FR stories? Yes, yes they are. The fact is that running them in Krynn would feel utterly wrong. Even running them in Greyhawk would feel wrong to me (and most of my home games in the last 20 years have been set there). And the reason that they are Realms stories is because they take advantage of the characters and societies of the Realms.
> 
> I've read a lot of adventures that you could set anywhere, including more than a few that are allegedly set in a particular world. I could conceivably set Hoard on another world, but Rise has so many links to the Realms that changing its location would rip out too much for me to consider it worthwhile.




I'm not a Realms fan... Sure, I've got the grey box SOMEWHERE... but I never really appreciated it.  (It was "inherited" from a college roommate who went AWOL from the Army.)

But I'm noticing that, as Merric has, there are lots of touches that I've seen only in other Realms adventures. The factions, the specific groups, the great old magics (as exemplified by the enchantment illuminating Elturiel)...

It wouldn't be that hard to take the basic plot, nor most of Chapters 1-3 into Mystara, but Mystara lacks the factionalism. And the iconic Red Wizards of Thay have no particular readily identifiable equivalent. So porting Hoard would be a good bit of effort, and would lack the inherent "Let's have your faction impose the adventure upon you" that can be done within the Realms. And I've not even looked at Rise.

Likewise, Mystara would have the other immortals (especially Ka) stomp the excrement out of Takhisis' attempt to destroy the status quo right before the ending. So, the overall storyline would not work nearly so well on Mystara, because the obvious end is going to unite most of the Mystaran Immortals against whichever upstart decides to go manifesting willy-nilly...

If the guys doing Elemental Evil do as good a job as Kobold did with Hoard, it will not feel like a port...


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## Sailor Moon (Jan 5, 2015)

Tiamat was a minor power that few outside of the Old Empires even knew about.

Sounds like someone was flipping through the 2nd edition Cult of the Dragon supplement and saw that Tiamat had an interest in the Cult and went from there.

Out of all the villains and gods out there, they could have chosen something a bit more popular and frankly a bit more interesting.


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## Derren (Jan 5, 2015)

Sailor Moon said:


> Sounds like someone was flipping through the 2nd edition Cult of the Dragon supplement and saw that Tiamat had an interest in the Cult and went from there.




I think there is more than that.
After 4E WotC tries to play it as save as possible. That includes:


FR as single and only setting. No splitting the playerbase and as FR is still the most well known setting (and sells the most books) it is the default.
A "No Retcon" retcon. People disliked 4E FR, but people also dislike retcons. So there will be no retcon, but everything will still be like it was previously.
When in doubt, be quiet. Instead of detailing what happens which inadvertently angers some fans, say nothing about lore to keep everyone in suspense.
Dragons sell, so put in more dragons. During 3E WotC posted somewhere that according to their research books about dragons sell better than others, so for the start of 5E they needed a dragon adventure.
Use what works. Instead of inventing new story arcs which might or might not be good they simply steal proven arcs from other settings to use.


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## HobbitFan (Jan 5, 2015)

I think you're right Derren.  That reading of the situation makes sense with what WOTC has said and done.

Except for the Sundering....which doesn't quite fit that model.  But there the disconnect might be due to PR hyperbole.  But then there were comments Ed and Bob made that the Realms were going to be fixed, that they felt like the 80s Realms again and that fans had reason to look forward to what's coming....What were they talking about then?  

I don't know how I feel about the whole mess anymore.  The 5E rulebooks have me excited about D&D again like I haven't been in years.

But the silence about all the Campaign Settings coupled with their abysmal 4E track record gives me pause.  I don't know if I trust WOTC anymore with creative stewardship of the IP they got from TSR.


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## dracomilan (Jan 5, 2015)

Sailor Moon said:


> Tiamat was a minor power that few outside of the Old Empires even knew about.
> 
> Sounds like someone was flipping through the 2nd edition Cult of the Dragon supplement and saw that Tiamat had an interest in the Cult and went from there.
> 
> Out of all the villains and gods out there, they could have chosen something a bit more popular and frankly a bit more interesting.




I bet it was Chris Perkins. 
And I do not find it a bad thing.

Anyway, after a big epic high fantasy storyarc I would have preferred a Birthright-styled gritty military storyarc instead of another epic.


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## Staffan (Jan 5, 2015)

HobbitFan said:


> Except for the Sundering....which doesn't quite fit that model.  But there the disconnect might be due to PR hyperbole.  But then there were comments Ed and Bob made that the Realms were going to be fixed, that they felt like the 80s Realms again and that fans had reason to look forward to what's coming....What were they talking about then?



As I understand it, the Realms will be moving forward in time, but to a time that looks a lot more like "classic" FR. All the 4e stuff will still have happened, but it's all in the past now.


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## Sailor Moon (Jan 5, 2015)

Staffan said:


> As I understand it, the Realms will be moving forward in time, but to a time that looks a lot more like "classic" FR. All the 4e stuff will still have happened, but it's all in the past now.




Well if these first few modules are a reflection of the new Realms then that classic look won't be happening.


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## Derren (Jan 5, 2015)

HobbitFan said:


> Except for the Sundering....which doesn't quite fit that model.  But there the disconnect might be due to PR hyperbole.  But then there were comments Ed and Bob made that the Realms were going to be fixed, that they felt like the 80s Realms again and that fans had reason to look forward to what's coming....What were they talking about then?




I think it fits perfectly. The 4E FR was a huge flop compared to previous editions as many people disliked the Spellplague changes and the time shift. On the other hand, some people like the new additions, at least some of it, and if FR is to become the default setting they can't undo everything (dragonborn). Besides, a retcon is always bad for the continuity and you will have ha hard time explaining to people which came with 4E why the setting goes backwards.
What the Sundering does, at least according to what we have been told, is that the timeline moves forward but the setting itself resembles what people have known from 2E/3E as all changes perceived as unpopular by WotC (most 4E stuff) are undone and all things popular, again in WotC eyes, are brought back. The only exceptions are those things in 4E which are generally liked (can't think of any at the moment) and things which need to stay in order to be the default setting.

But pulling this off well is very tricky. Thats why WotC does not release specifics. Better to keep everyone hoping that it will be good, no matter how they complain about the lack of information, than giving them informations and have many people turn away when they see that it won't be what they expect.


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## Shemeska (Jan 5, 2015)

Sailor Moon said:


> What reasoning?
> 
> You have a goddess that was never trapped but suddenly is.




It's worth noting that when asked specifically about Tiamat being trapped in the 9 Hells, Kobold admits that it is a continuity error with no precedent in previous lore on Tiamat, but that this setup was part of the baseline material given to them by WotC and being contracted out to write the module based on those guidelines they were in no position to contradict it.


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## DEFCON 1 (Jan 5, 2015)

Derren said:


> What the Sundering does, at least according to what we have been told, is that the timeline moves forward but the setting itself resembles what people have known from 2E/3E as all changes perceived as unpopular by WotC (most 4E stuff) are undone and all things popular, again in WotC eyes, are brought back. The only exceptions are those things in 4E which are generally liked (can't think of any at the moment) and things which need to stay in order to be the default setting.




I think we might even strike some 3E stuff from the world too, not just 4E stuff.  From what I heard in interviews from Salvatore, what the Sundering did was have Ao reform the Tablets of Fate... and thus put all the gods back into set portfolios.  Thus, the "Wild Wild West" of the Time of Troubles and on... all the gods fighting over worshippers and scraps of the divine pie... comes to an end.  With Ao putting all the gods back into tight little boxes like they were in 2E ("You get what you get and you don't get upset, kiddies!")... the gods apparently are now supposed to be more distant and no longer running rampant across Faerun mucking things up.  Instead, it's up to all the mortals to muck things up instead.  

So what it seems it basically comes down to is all the parts of Returned Abeir that showed up in 4E go away as the two worlds re-split again (although some stuff that came into Faerun via the merge but then moved away from those Returned sections will still remain on the planet-- they don't just magically *poof* away like the Returned zones do)... and anything related to the gods running roughshod over the world (Time of Troubles on) gets buttoned up.  All those plots and stories still occurred... they just won't continue to occur in the future.

That seems to be what I've interpreted from the talks I've heard about what the Sundering was meant to accomplish.


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## FormerlyHemlock (Jan 5, 2015)

aramis erak said:


> *Likewise, Mystara would have the other immortals (especially Ka) stomp the excrement out of Takhisis' attempt to destroy the status quo right before the ending*. So, the overall storyline would not work nearly so well on Mystara, because the obvious end is going to unite most of the Mystaran Immortals against whichever upstart decides to go manifesting willy-nilly...




This is likewise the problem with setting the adventure in FR. There is _no reason_ for the "climactic battle" at the end to ever happen as written. You _could_ have come up with a reason why it had to be these four individuals, specifically, who fight Tiamat (it turns out that her summoning is inevitable and unstoppable no matter what you do--eliminating ritual components merely weakens her), but the way the adventure has actually been written simply _begs_ for the good guys to detach one or more metallic dragons from the battle outside and take them with them as a force multiplier. Even moreso it is incomprehensible why Elminster and the Simbul et al. don't show up to the battle to curb-stomp Tiamat with you. Rise of Tiamat would make a decent adventure in a world where there aren't any good-aligned NPCs over level 5, but in the FR the plot is simply bizarre.


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## Lord_Blacksteel (Jan 5, 2015)

As far as the setting for the Elemental Evil run, yes we know we can run them in any setting. The annoyance is in what setting WOTC chooses to support with their published adventures. If they were set in Greyhawk it would show they were committed to supporting other settings and would probably generate some buzz with the first GH product in a decade or so - the "original D&D world" etc. This is the perfect theme to use for that return. Placing it in the Realms doesn't render it unplayable in Greyhawk (or anywhere else), it's just a clear sign that we're not going to see a Greyhawk revival in the immediate future. I suspect the constant references to various settings in the rulebooks got a lot of us excited, thinking we would see more concrete support for them in the future. We still might, but it's clearly not the _near_ future. 



ranger69 said:


> I am less concerned where this AP is set than the quality of adventure.




After the disappointment of the two dragon adventures, I have to agree.


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## Derren (Jan 5, 2015)

DEFCON 1 said:


> the gods apparently are now supposed to be more distant and no longer running rampant across Faerun mucking things up.




Except for Tiamat being physically summoned to run rampant across Faerun...
AOs laws don't seem to do much.


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## Goemoe (Jan 6, 2015)

Henry said:


> I hope it works for Wizards, but I didn't see the appeal with the Dragon Queen stuff, and I'm just not seeing the appeal here either. If I want Realms action, I'm busting out the Zhentarim; Manshoon; Halaster Blackcloak; Karsus and the Netherese Shades; Orcus; Moander or Tyranthraxus. I don't care about Tiamat (belongs to Krynn, really) or Tharizdun (belongs to Oerth in my mind). I kind of share Giltonio_Santos' sentiments in that respect.



Same here. I don't care for any but the core books currently. Normally I would buy more. Mixing realms does not look promising to me. I am waiting for generic stuff, stuff with real psionics or Eberron. A big YEAH to Eberron


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## I'm A Banana (Jan 6, 2015)

As I've mentioned before, I can basically understand the fundamental reasoning behind tossing everything into FR (BRAND, BRAND, BRAND, BABY!), and I don't think it's automatically flawed or wrong. Tiamat appears in FR because Tiamat in FR will sell more books than Tiamat on Krynn. They do it in a way that doesn't wreck FR, it works fine. 

It is a bit of a missed opportunity w/regards to their other settings, but I also think it's unreasonable to expect WotC to choose to sell less books to use the most thematically appropriate setting when they can stick it in FR and it'll be fine. Maybe not as good as it could've been, but fine. A sensible business decision.

I think the reason we aren't seeing more FR-branded threats is, again, the same reason Tharizdun is showing up in Faerun: FR is the Generic D&D World where All D&D Happens at the moment. 

I'm not personally one for generic, and I'd like them to focus more on what each setting is actually good at (FR isn't "generic", everything is specific), but if this approach gives 5e greater longevity and means that more niche weirdness (liken Al Quadim setting!) might be published, it's hard to knock it too hard. It does little actual harm, which is a far cry from 4e's sacred cow bar-b-que.


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## Derren (Jan 6, 2015)

Kamikaze Midget said:


> As I've mentioned before, I can basically understand the fundamental reasoning behind tossing everything into FR (BRAND, BRAND, BRAND, BABY!), and I don't think it's automatically flawed or wrong. Tiamat appears in FR because Tiamat in FR will sell more books than Tiamat on Krynn. They do it in a way that doesn't wreck FR, it works fine.




They could of course also spend more effort and create scenarios that fit to the FR instead of breaching lore.


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## RichGreen (Jan 6, 2015)

Hi,

Tiamat has been part of the Realms since the Old Grey Box - although I don't think she's been linked to the Cult of the Dragon previously. She's in the 1e MM too (and the D&D cartoon) so she's not really linked to a particular D&D world. 

Takhisis is the five-headed chromatic dragon in Dragonlance/Krynn, although the similarities with Tiamat are uncanny 

Cheers


Rich


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## Sailor Moon (Jan 6, 2015)

RichGreen said:


> Hi,
> 
> Tiamat has been part of the Realms since the Old Grey Box - although I don't think she's been linked to the Cult of the Dragon previously. She's in the 1e MM too (and the D&D cartoon) so she's not really linked to a particular D&D world.
> 
> ...



Tiamat actually came from another world. When the Imaskari kidnapped people from another dimension and enslaved them, their gods followed. During 2nd edition, Tiamat took an interest in the Cult but was never successful in taking them over. You had a few of the younger members that were interested but nothing more. Her actual imprisonment had no lead up, she was declared imprisoned just for the sake of the module. Tiamat's existence was barely known outside of the Old Empires.

It's one of those situations where you have Lolth from Greyhawk and Lolth from FR.


----------



## pukunui (Jan 7, 2015)

Out of curiosity, what is the source for these covers? How do we know they're official?


----------



## Wolfskin (Jan 7, 2015)

pukunui said:


> Out of curiosity, what is the source for these covers? How do we know they're official?



I found them on the FantasyWelt.de online shop while looking for other stuff. I don't think they'd put fake covers for the products they sell.


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## pukunui (Jan 7, 2015)

Wolfskin said:


> I found them on the FantasyWelt.de online shop while looking for other stuff. I don't think they'd put fake covers for the products they sell.



Cool. Thanks. On a related note, anyone know where the original scoop about these (titles, prices, descriptions, etc) came from?


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## HobbitFan (Jan 7, 2015)

It seems to me that people's reaction to the notion that WOTC might be using a Greyhawk baddie in the Realms are really about two (related things):  artistic integrity and creativity.  As in people are concerned that ripping off Greyhawk doesn't show a whole lot of either.  

Given the wholesale destruction, etc. of 4E, I think some skepticism in regards to WOTC' stewardship is fair.


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## Parmandur (Jan 7, 2015)

Sailor Moon said:


> Tiamat actually came from another world. When the Imaskari kidnapped people from another dimension and enslaved them, their gods followed. During 2nd edition, Tiamat took an interest in the Cult but was never successful in taking them over. You had a few of the younger members that were interested but nothing more. Her actual imprisonment had no lead up, she was declared imprisoned just for the sake of the module. Tiamat's existence was barely known outside of the Old Empires.
> 
> 
> 
> It's one of those situations where you have Lolth from Greyhawk and Lolth from FR.





OK, so I checked again, here's the official explanation from Rise of the Dragon Queen: 



Spoiler



"Tiamat has long threatened Faerun, often appearing in lands such as Chesssenta and Unther to drive mortals to worship her awesome power.  Although mortals don't know it, the end of the Sundering and the Age of Upheaval also put and to such direct meddling by the gods.  Without powerful magic and mortal aid, Tiamat cannot travel from her home in Avernus into the world." pg. 10, followed by some Infernal politics



So, Tiamat is trapped by the Sundering, and they are following up on an old plot hook.  Big deal.


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## Parmandur (Jan 7, 2015)

HobbitFan said:


> It seems to me that people's reaction to the notion that WOTC might be using a Greyhawk baddie in the Realms are really about two (related things):  artistic integrity and creativity.  As in people are concerned that ripping off Greyhawk doesn't show a whole lot of either.
> 
> 
> 
> Given the wholesale destruction, etc. of 4E, I think some skepticism in regards to WOTC' stewardship is fair.





I'm not really interested in their products for "creativity" or "artistic integrity" personally; D&D settings aren't really about that, they are about fun.  Playing a giant birdman inn a pact with a genie fighting the Elder Elemental god in a megadungeon?  Fun, don't really care what the fantasy world serial number says.


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## HobbitFan (Jan 7, 2015)

Parmandur said:


> I'm not really interested in their products for "creativity" or "artistic integrity" personally; D&D settings aren't really about that, they are about fun.  Playing a giant birdman inn a pact with a genie fighting the Elder Elemental god in a megadungeon?  Fun, don't really care what the fantasy world serial number says.




I didn't say anything about D&D not being about fun.  It's entertainment.  Of course, it's about fun.  
I was talking about quality of product not its reason for being.


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## MonsterEnvy (Jan 7, 2015)

I have a pretty good feeling the Elder Elemental Eye (Who while a Greyhawk thing has intorloped in the FR before) will NOT actually be fought. The end game opponents I am betting will be the Princes of Elemental Evil. Imix, Olhydra, Yan-C-Bin, and Orgemoch. These guys are setting neutral and have acully had a pretty good amount of buildup in the FR before 5e officially came out. During the playtest almost every adventure released then mentioned or had stuff related to them. Dragon and Dungeon before the hiatus had quite a few articles on elemental evil and the elemental princes towards the end as well. 

This signifies to me that they wanted to do a Elemental Story line for a while now. They just wanted to start 5e with one of the standards of the game Dragons.


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## Sailor Moon (Jan 7, 2015)

Parmandur said:


> I'm not really interested in their products for "creativity" or "artistic integrity" personally; D&D settings aren't really about that, they are about fun.  Playing a giant birdman inn a pact with a genie fighting the Elder Elemental god in a megadungeon?  Fun, don't really care what the fantasy world serial number says.



I don't find any of that fun when it's on a regular basis.

Boring as hell actually.


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## RichGreen (Jan 7, 2015)

MonsterEnvy said:


> I have a pretty good feeling the Elder Elemental Eye (Who while a Greyhawk thing has intorloped in the FR before) will actually be fought. The end game opponents I am betting will be the Princes of Elemental Evil. Imix, Olhydra, Yan-C-Bin, and Orgemoch. These guys are setting neutral and have acully had a pretty good amount of buildup in the FR before 5e officially came out. During the playtest almost every adventure released then mentioned or had stuff related to them. Dragon and Dungeon before the hiatus had quite a few articles on elemental evil and the elemental princes towards the end as well.
> 
> This signifies to me that they wanted to do a Elemental Story line for a while now. They just wanted to start 5e with one of the standards of the game Dragons.



Sound theory! I think you could well be right.


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## MonsterEnvy (Jan 7, 2015)

RichGreen said:


> Sound theory! I think you could well be right.




Correction to my post. I forgot the not in the first line.

I think the Elder Elemental Eye will NOT actually be fought.


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## RichGreen (Jan 7, 2015)

MonsterEnvy said:


> Correction to my post. I forgot the not in the first line.
> 
> I think the Elder Elemental Eye will NOT actually be fought.



Yes, thought that's what you meant anyway


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## Parmandur (Jan 7, 2015)

Sailor Moon said:


> I don't find any of that fun when it's on a regular basis.
> 
> 
> 
> Boring as hell actually.





Eh, well, Wizards has successfully gotten me excited to buy each announced product so far; guess time will tell how the general populace responds.


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## Kobold Avenger (Jan 7, 2015)

I remember there being the fan theory that the demiplane of imprisonment that Tharizdun was banished to was Ravenloft.  It was an interesting theory about the nature of the dark powers and the demiplane.  But now things are changed such that the theory is less viable.  And then there's the completely non-canon Gord the Rogue novels that Gygax wrote, where Tharizdun destroys Oerth.  Somehow I've always got the impression he's like a Dark God beyond other Dark Gods (after all Warlocks can have a pact with him).  While he feels more tied to GH than other settings, but as an apocalyptic entity that must be sealed away he could show up in other settings.  I guess with the idea that the adventure path must start in a generic as possible world (I wouldn't be surprised there's some plane-hopping involved), so FR he ends up in, as I don't think they're going to bother with campaign setting books just yet.

They'll probably try to tie elemental evil with the Vaati, Queen of Chaos and the rod of seven parts too, since it's another part of D&D lore they want to tie up neatly with the rest of their IP.


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## the Jester (Jan 7, 2015)

Derren said:


> I think there is more than that.
> After 4E WotC tries to play it as save as possible. That includes:
> 
> 
> FR as single and only setting. No splitting the playerbase and as FR is still the most well known setting (and sells the most books) it is the default.




Given the fact that other campaign settings are mentioned extensively throughout the books, even to the point that some of their pantheons are detailed, I disagree with this point- outside of the context of organized play. 

In the context of organized play, though, I'll go along with you on this. Which, frankly, is too bad, IMHO. I mean, I see the business sense side of it, I just find it very disappointing.


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## Hutchimus Prime (Jan 7, 2015)

Sounds like it could be fun but will inspire a lot of Highlander references and Queen impressions. 

Good to see the sturm and drang and endless baseless criticisms of WOTC continues unabated.


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## pming (Jan 8, 2015)

Hiya!

  As I said in another ToEE --> FR thread...

  Being a DM with a more or less 'constant' running of GH campaigns since I picked up the Folio way back when...I must admit I did get that sharp little pin-prick of nerd-rage when I heard this. Then I took a deep breath and thought about it a bit. I came to the conclusion that, yes, I'll just have to deal with being a bit annoyed at WotC's missed opportunity to introduce GH to a whole group of new players...and also to *maybe* convince some old 1e Greyhawk Grognard (mostly over at the Canonfire! site) to give 5e at least a little bit of a cursory glance.

  At the end, I suggested a compromise: Set up this ToEE as a sort of "ToEE : The Resurgence". I suggested that if the writers took it as gospel that the "first" ToEE started in GH, and was eventually laid low by heroes there, sending the "big-bad guys/girls" (no spoilers) and the "nodes"....not straight to the Abyss/Oblivion...but to the FR! Slowly acclimating to this "new world", said BBEG/G start up their shenanigans in this "new and unsuspecting Prime Material Plane". So, *this* ToEE, the Forgotten Realms 'version', is basically a new base of operations for the Elder Elemental Forces. The writers could more or less keep the core tone, deadliness, etc. of the original GH version, but with new maps (based on the old), new NPC's (inspiration from the old), etc, etc, etc.

  This would keep the "original ToEE" free from any FR-tint, and allow all of us who have already played or DM'ed the original to be surprised and excited about a new "version". The outright stating (probably in the background) that "The First Temple was on another world. A world called Oerth". I guess you could equate it to the original 70's Battle Star Galactica with the newer 00's Battle Star Galactica. Same overall base and whatnot, but just a 're-telling in a different way'.

  I'd be totally down with that.

^_^

Paul L. Ming


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## Scrivener of Doom (Jan 8, 2015)

While I am not a big fan of Tiamat in the Realms - and, after Dragonlance, Red Hand of Doom, and Scales of War, I think we have seen enough of her as a BBEG - I rather like the idea of the Temple of Elemental Evil in FR.

For me it's a way to free the imprisoned Cyric rather than Tharizdun. I've got a 5E game running now around Phandalin and levels 1-5 are going to be a mix of Tombstone the movie (with the Zhentarim as the bad guys) and Keep on the Borderlands, but I expect levels 6-10 or so will involved the Temple of Elemental Evil and a plot to free Cyric.

The original _Temple of Elemental Evil_ was so lacking in detail that it really feels generic rather than Greyhawk-specific. It was only Monte's _Return to_ in 3E that made it feel like Greyhawk or even elemental. It's also already played a part in both _Scourge of the Sword Coast_ and _Dead in Thay_ just prior to 5E's release.

So, yeah, not a fan of Tiamat being used for the umpteenth time using a plot idea that sounds like it was cobbled together from Dragons of Eberron but I'm happy to see elemental evil getting a guernsey in FR.

IMO. YMMV.


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## kettite (Jan 8, 2015)

The catalog listing for Adventurer's Handbook is showing as cancelled: http://edelweiss.abovethetreeline.c...roupID=0&catalogID=407200&org=&sku=0786965770

Pure hyperbolic speculation: they've merged the two, justifying the $50 price point on Princes of the Apocalypse.

I hope that this encourages further rampant speculation and mass hysteria.  Mass Hysteria I say.


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## Morrus (Jan 8, 2015)

kettite said:


> The catalog listing for Adventurer's Handbook is showing as cancelled: http://edelweiss.abovethetreeline.c...roupID=0&catalogID=407200&org=&sku=0786965770
> 
> Pure hyperbolic speculation: they've merged the two, justifying the $50 price point on Princes of the Apocalypse.
> 
> I hope that this encourages further rampant speculation and mass hysteria.  Mass Hysteria I say.




Odd. PotA is still there, so it's not a case of them removing info that wasn't supposed to be there yet.


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## SkidAce (Jan 8, 2015)

Out of touch, out of reach yeah ...

Mass Hysteria when you're near...


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## Sailor Moon (Jan 8, 2015)

Dogs and cats living together........

Mass Hysteria.


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## Staffan (Jan 8, 2015)

Hutchimus Prime said:


> Sounds like it could be fun but will inspire a lot of Highlander references and Queen impressions.



That's a feature, not a bug.


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## BrockBallingdark (Jan 8, 2015)

SkidAce said:


> Out of touch, out of reach yeah ...
> 
> Mass Hysteria when you're near...




Def Leppard! lol


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## SirAntoine (Jan 8, 2015)

the Jester said:


> Yeah, had these not been set in the Realms, they would have been an almost sure-fire sell to me.
> 
> In the Realms? No interest.
> 
> For Christ's sake, the Temple of Elemental Evil, the Elder Elemental Eye and the whole elemental evil cult thing are all huge fixtures of Greyhawk. Sigh.




I tried to say as much, but was told Greyhawk was a proven bad business decision.


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## the Jester (Jan 8, 2015)

SirAntoine said:


> I tried to say as much, but was told Greyhawk was a proven bad business decision.




Yeah... I agree with you, and I don't really buy that argument.

See, the thing is, I don't think there has really been an honest attempt to sell GH material since 1e. The 2e stuff was a combination of a middle finger to Gygax (_Castle Greyhawk_ megamodule, ugh) and a bunch of okay stuff that tried to make sweeping changes in the world (_Greyhawk Wars, From the Ashes,_ et. al.). 

Neither one of these, IMHO, had the same kind of appeal to a GH fan as material that would further develop it would have. (The _City of Greyhawk_ boxed set was probably this kind of material, but I never had a chance to get my hands on it, though I've seen the map of the city from it.) Big "Realms-Shaking Event" material is always, always, always the stuff that riles up the fanbase (of whatever setting, but especially the FR), so GW, FtA and that kind of thing was bound to alienate some of GH's fans.

As for CG, it really was a "F You!" to Gygax and everyone who had wanted a real Castle Greyhawk adventure for years or decades.

3e had GH as the 'default setting' but didn't do anything with it, or release any decent material for it outside of the Living Greyhawk stuff and, possibly, the EtCG adventure- but I looked at it, and it looked... partial at best. In fairness, IIRC it was one of the first 'delve format' adventures, and in retrospect, I think the delve format was terrible. But I don't recall seeing any overall area maps or anything, so I didn't end up picking it up.

4e didn't even touch GH.

Compare this to the way FR was developed for the most part, especially in 1e and 2e: supplement after supplement expanding and developing the world, either regions or religion or whatever the topic was at a given moment. LOTS of stuff aimed at expanding the world, not rewriting it. (I recognize that there are always RSEs going on, too, but there are lots of non-RSE FR books pre-4e.) Or the material that developed Eberron in 3e: expanding our understanding of the setting, NOT constantly trying to overwrite what came before.


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## Sailor Moon (Jan 8, 2015)

the Jester said:


> Yeah... I agree with you, and I don't really buy that argument.
> 
> See, the thing is, I don't think there has really been an honest attempt to sell GH material since 1e. The 2e stuff was a combination of a middle finger to Gygax (_Castle Greyhawk_ megamodule, ugh) and a bunch of okay stuff that tried to make sweeping changes in the world (_Greyhawk Wars, From the Ashes,_ et. al.).
> 
> ...




I agree with you.

Greyhawk was ripe for the taking and Wizards dropped the ball. You had a fully fledged world that was generic enough to allow almost anything to be added. It had it's known parts and yet it had tons of parts that were unknown and ready for lore to be created. 

I'm not really sure why Wizards thinks it's a good idea to continuously shake up the Realms fans to the point where a lot of them leave. Do they think there is some wide untapped group of fans that will pick up where the old fans left off? 

They did a great job on the rules but outside of that, they have really been disappointing.


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## MerricB (Jan 9, 2015)

the Jester said:


> See, the thing is, I don't think there has really been an honest attempt to sell GH material since 1e. The 2e stuff was a combination of a middle finger to Gygax (_Castle Greyhawk_ megamodule, ugh) and a bunch of okay stuff that tried to make sweeping changes in the world (_Greyhawk Wars, From the Ashes,_ et. al.).




You're missing an era of Greyhawk releases there.

The first era of Greyhawk releases is 1978-1985 (or thereabouts) when Gygax was at TSR. This is when the world is developed primarily through adventures. Giant/Drow, Slavers, Hommlet, White Plume Mountain, Tomb of Horrors. While this rather defines Greyhawk, a lot of this is accidental. There's not really a big plan here. The idea of the adventures actually changing the world hasn't arrived yet. Yes, a lot of them *could*, but the idea of the world changing at TSR instead of just in gamer's homes isn't evident. Not only that, but a lot of the adventures aren't really Greyhawk adventures at all. They're just placed there because it's TSR's house setting. 

Following 1985, the only releases for the next couple of years are the supermodule compilations. These are sort of significant in linking the adventures more to Greyhawk, but they do have their own problems.

From 1988-1990, we hit the real problematic age of Greyhawk releases. You've got a faction in TSR who want to treat the setting well, and you've got a faction who want to destroy it. From the first faction, you get the Greyhawk Adventures hardcover, Greyhawk Ruins, and the WGA adventures. From the second faction you get Castle Greyhawk, Puppets, Gargoyle and Vale of the Mage. In, in the middle, you have the City of Greyhawk boxed set, which I'm probably being unfair to. The boxed set really is part of the same strand of releases that leads to the Greyhawk Wars (the WGA adventures), but I have some problems with how its put together, most notably with its naming schemes. However, it could also be the best city release for D&D until Neverwinter came along a couple of years ago. (Sharn might be in there, but I've major, major problems with the various Waterdeep releases). 

Ignoring the joke modules from RPGA and anything written by Jean Rabe, this era is the first serious attempt to properly present Greyhawk as a living world. It's not helped by the serious adventures not being very good (this is true of almost every adventure post 1985), but for the first time you get the impression that the designers are attempting something here. It also represents a massive shift from the first era of Greyhawk products. When we look back at the glory days of Greyhawk, we think of that first era. There's just one problem: It's an unsustainable era. The original Greyhawk releases assume Greyhawk is in stasis. Wizards would later do this to Eberron. And while showing just a snapshot of a world works, and works really well, at some point you've detailed everything. The timeline has to move, and the original Greyhawk releases aren't connected enough to the world to allow that.

To their credit, the TSR designers realised that, and they gave the world to Carl Sargent to get moving. And he did. By blowing it up.

I have massive problems with the Greyhawk Wars (beginning with their name, which makes no sense in-world) and From the Ashes, but the one thing they did absolutely right was change Greyhawk from a setting you could place adventures in into a setting that inspired adventures. This isn't to say that there wasn't some inspiration in the original Greyhawk sets, but From the Ashes makes the setting into something that appears much more dynamic. 

And so from 1991-93 you have an era where TSR explores this new world, producing a number of sourcebooks for the setting (and very few adventures).

And then Greyhawk dies. Ivid the Undying is (ironically) cancelled and only released as an electronic document a couple of years later. The shake up of the world has failed. It's actually hard to tell from the outside whether this is more due to internal politics or bad sales, but I do know there were a lot of people unhappy with the From the Ashes world. It's changed the feel of Greyhawk too much. From telling stories of adventure, we've moved to telling stories of struggling to survive in the new world order. (This isn't entirely accurate, but anyway...)

It's 1998 when Greyhawk is next visited. Roger E Moore is in charge of Greyhawk now, and Wizards own TSR. From 1998-2000, we have Wizards attempting to fix Greyhawk. The year is advanced to 591 CY, and a bunch of clean-up work is done to make the feel of the world much more like that of the original boxed set, whilst retaining the idea that the setting generates adventures. Unfortunately, the actual adventures published are lacklustre. Return to the Tomb of Horrors isn't that bad, but the Star Cairns series are extremely forgettable. And after about 12 products, we're done. The culmination of this era is the _Living Greyhawk Gazetteer_, which is one of the true gems of Greyhawk products.

After that, it's the 3E era, and although the first eight 3E adventures are, in theory, set in Greyhawk, they aren't really, and there's a lot of Living Greyhawk material which is mostly invisible to the larger D&D population. And there's Return to the Temple of Elemental Evil, which has its own, major problems.

Throughout all of this, you have Dungeon magazine occasionally producing content for Greyhawk. Most of it is forgettable. A lot of it I've never seen. (Most of my experience of Dungeon magazine happened in the 3E era). About the only significant release is the Age of Worms AP. (Neither Shackled City nor Savage Tide really play into the core Greyhawk world - they're too far off the edge of the map). But Dungeon magazine should be noted.

So, the eras of Greyhawk publishing - to me at least - feel like 1978-85, 1988-90, 1991-93 and finally 1998-2000. 

All of which feed into why it's really, really hard to bring back Greyhawk. 

Cheers!


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## the Jester (Jan 9, 2015)

MerricB said:


> You're missing an era of Greyhawk releases there.




I am? Sorry- I'm not sure which one you're referring to, exactly; could you clarify this point for me?

If you mean the 'first wave', I didn't mention it because it's the only period when I feel like GH was given a fair chance, but I also don't count the adventures, with the exception of T1-4, as really "Greyhawk material" so much as "adventures that just happen to be set in Greyhawk".  



MerricB said:


> When we look back at the glory days of Greyhawk, we think of that first era. There's just one problem: It's an unsustainable era. The original Greyhawk releases assume Greyhawk is in stasis. Wizards would later do this to Eberron. And while showing just a snapshot of a world works, and works really well, at some point you've detailed everything.




But GH not only never reached that point, it never even _approached_ it. I mean, there are very few actual GH sourcebooks (unless you count adventures, which I'm not), and those are scattered across three editions and are VERY inconsistent in quality (to be generous). 

Really, we never had a sourcebook to detail any major areas of the World of Greyhawk in any detail until, what, some lousy 2e softbound on the Scarlet Brotherhood with super-crappy art and no real passion to it? Unless, again, you count the City of Greyhawk boxed set, which I guess I should, but that came out when TSR was floundering and trying to support fifty lines of often crappy products at the same time- an approach which meant, at least at my FLGS at the time, they would get one copy of 1/5 the released material in and hope to God that someone would buy it, and half the time they ended up with Jakandor or something sitting on the shelf forever instead. The whole model that TSR was using by that time was counterproductive to actually building sales, IMHO. (See the famous Ryan Dancey article about warehouses full of material that never went anywhere.)

I don't think a static timeline is necessarily the best approach to a setting, but I think there was plenty to be fleshed out without advancing the timeline; and I further think that there was plenty of room to advance the timeline without burning huge elements of the setting down (GH Wars, I'm looking at you).

I mean, we could've had a Great Kingdom sourcebook; a Wild Coast sourcebook; a Lords of the Isles sourcebook; a (good) Scarlet Brotherhood sourcebook; a Furyondy & Veluna & the Shield Lands sourcebook; a Bandit Kingdoms sourcebook; a Geoff & the lands of the southwest sourcebook; a Perrenland sourcebook; a Horned Society sourcebook; a Lands of Iuz sourcebook; a detailed religion sourcebook (c.f. Faiths and Avatars); etc. None of this stuff (other than the Scarlet Brotherhood sourcebook) ever got made. 

Compare to the dozens of "Detailing This Region in Excruciating Detail" sourcebooks of 1e and 2e FR material, and it seems like there was a huge disparity in effort, which I suspect had to do with the "Screw Gygax and the world he rode in on" attitude of some in TSR back at the time. 



MerricB said:


> I have massive problems with the Greyhawk Wars (beginning with their name, which makes no sense in-world) and From the Ashes, but the one thing they did absolutely right was change Greyhawk from a setting you could place adventures in into a setting that inspired adventures.




Hmm. See, I found the original folio, and then the WoGH boxed set, to be very inspiring. But this is a matter of taste. I felt like every area had something going on in it that I wanted to explore. "Oh, you're going to Stonefist? Cool, barbarian wrestling match time!" But YMMV on this. 



MerricB said:


> And then Greyhawk dies. Ivid the Undying is (ironically) cancelled and only released as an electronic document a couple of years later. The shake up of the world has failed. It's actually hard to tell from the outside whether this is more due to internal politics or bad sales...




I think there's room to argue that the internal politics/Gygax-hate created the bad sales. 



MerricB said:


> It's 1998 when Greyhawk is next visited. Roger E Moore is in charge of Greyhawk now, and Wizards own TSR. From 1998-2000, we have Wizards attempting to fix Greyhawk. The year is advanced to 591 CY, and a bunch of clean-up work is done to make the feel of the world much more like that of the original boxed set, whilst retaining the idea that the setting generates adventures. Unfortunately, the actual adventures published are lacklustre. Return to the Tomb of Horrors isn't that bad, but the Star Cairns series are extremely forgettable.




But again, at least with RttToH, it isn't really a GH adventure so much as an adventure that just happens to be set in GH. There's really nothing in there that's tied to the world except for a few passing mentions of geography. Even the new Starter Set is tied more heavily to the FR than that, with factions and so forth. 

I can't speak to the Star Cairn modules, as I never saw them. Maybe this is the era I missed, actually! 



MerricB said:


> And after about 12 products, we're done. The culmination of this era is the _Living Greyhawk Gazetteer_, which is one of the true gems of Greyhawk products.




Now, I did see one copy of this on the shelf at my FLGS once, and it looked pretty good. 



MerricB said:


> After that, it's the 3E era, and although the first eight 3E adventures are, in theory, set in Greyhawk, they aren't really, and there's a lot of Living Greyhawk material which is mostly invisible to the larger D&D population. And there's Return to the Temple of Elemental Evil, which has its own, major problems.




All agreed here.


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## SirAntoine (Jan 9, 2015)

There were some extra setting books, such as Iuz the Evil and The Marklands, which I was never able to pick up because their prices out-of-print were so high.  They have done very little, generally speaking, to develop the setting, and the Greyhawk Wars to From the Ashes storyline is more than a little ridiculous.  There are people who bought From the Ashes, and built entire campaigns out of it, but who never realized that it's so different from the original.  It isn't that it's bad, just that the story for how the world got to that point is absurd.  They reshaped the world very quickly, and totally changed its flavor.  The cover of the boxed set tells it all:  an undead knight riding a horse in front of a burning castle, with the color of flames everywhere.  The Great Kingdom became an absolutely morbid place, more suited to a domain of Ravenloft, and Iuz emerged from captivity to conquer this huge empire, and the Scarlet Brotherhood somehow managed to conquer several powerful nations that had resisted all manner of infiltration and wars in the past, from within, by assassinations at the highest levels of government.

The setting is ripe for a new vision, perhaps best revisiting the World of Greyhawk boxed set just like the Forgotten Realms, for all their support, might be better off with a revisiting of the old grey box.


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## MonsterEnvy (Jan 9, 2015)

I actually really like Iuz the evil find it a great book to expand on Iuz's lands.

On 3.e era Greyhawk. I found Expedition to Castle Greyhawk to be pretty great. The cartographer for it Mike Schley even appears to be willing to give me player versions of the maps he made for Castle Greyhawk. I plan on ruing a 5e version of it and I think it will be mighty fun.


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## MerricB (Jan 9, 2015)

the Jester said:


> I am? Sorry- I'm not sure which one you're referring to, exactly; could you clarify this point for me?




The 1998-2000 releases were the ones I was referring to, which tried to bring Greyhawk back a bit to the original setting.




> But GH not only never reached that point, it never even _approached_ it. I mean, there are very few actual GH sourcebooks (unless you count adventures, which I'm not), and those are scattered across three editions and are VERY inconsistent in quality (to be generous).




Agreed. (Actually, I'd almost say they're very consistent in quality, but it's not on the good end of quality).



> Unless, again, you count the City of Greyhawk boxed set, which I guess I should,




You probably should. Fate of Istus also has some important source info, even though most of the product is just plain bad.



> I don't think a static timeline is necessarily the best approach to a setting, but I think there was plenty to be fleshed out without advancing the timeline; and I further think that there was plenty of room to advance the timeline without burning huge elements of the setting down (GH Wars, I'm looking at you).




There was. The trouble was that, in 1990, you've got a setting that has been around for 10+ years and nothing's really been done with the setting. In retrospect, we can tell why the changes were a bad idea, but there are a lot of elements of the concept that *aren't* bad ideas. Heck, I really like the idea of Iuz trying to gain control of the Barbarians and accidentally provoking this major conflict. I just don't like where it went from there. "Five Shall Be One" is a pretty good adventure. "Howl from the North" is trash.



> I mean, we could've had a Great Kingdom sourcebook; a Wild Coast sourcebook; a Lords of the Isles sourcebook; a (good) Scarlet Brotherhood sourcebook; a Furyondy & Veluna & the Shield Lands sourcebook; a Bandit Kingdoms sourcebook; a Geoff & the lands of the southwest sourcebook; a Perrenland sourcebook; a Horned Society sourcebook; a Lands of Iuz sourcebook; a detailed religion sourcebook (c.f. Faiths and Avatars); etc. None of this stuff (other than the Scarlet Brotherhood sourcebook) ever got made.




Well, they planned to do so. The From the Ashes era did a lot of those sourcebooks, but - unfortunately - it was the wrong setting.



> Hmm. See, I found the original folio, and then the WoGH boxed set, to be very inspiring. But this is a matter of taste. I felt like every area had something going on in it that I wanted to explore. "Oh, you're going to Stonefist? Cool, barbarian wrestling match time!" But YMMV on this.




There's a lot of great stuff in the original boxed set (there's a reason its my baseline for my campaigns), but you need to compare it to the LGG to really see the difference.



> But again, at least with RttToH, it isn't really a GH adventure so much as an adventure that just happens to be set in GH. There's really nothing in there that's tied to the world except for a few passing mentions of geography. Even the new Starter Set is tied more heavily to the FR than that, with factions and so forth.




Yep. Absolutely. 



> I can't speak to the Star Cairn modules, as I never saw them. Maybe this is the era I missed, actually!




That's the one! 



> Now, I did see one copy of this on the shelf at my FLGS once, and it looked pretty good.




It's really good. It's still flawed, but you should try to pick up a copy if you can.

Cheers!


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## Parmandur (Jan 9, 2015)

I am personally excited to see what is in store for new setting support in 5E.  And as far as Greyhawk is concerned, it is one of the four settings given priority in the PHB, and they go out of the way to call it out as different in the DMG, as well.

Time will tell...


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## aramis erak (Jan 9, 2015)

I remember being underwhelmed by the entirety of the Greyhawk materials... which for me, basically means the 83 boxed set and the hardcover. I used the maps occasionally, mostly as wall decoration...

Almost anything they do is likely to be better than those two, IMO. But I'm still unlikely to use it.


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## Vicar In A Tutu (Jan 9, 2015)

I loved Return to the Tomb of Horrors. Admittedly, I only read the adventure. I remember visiting my sister in Oslo and reading the entire adventure at the airport, waiting for my delayed flight back to Stavanger. There was a really sinister and great atmosphere in that adventure. It might not play as well as it reads, though.


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