>>90100963
>change what you want when you want; you don't need the books
or
>change what you want when you want; you don't need the books
Not much difference, really.

>>90100963
Generally speaking Ed doesn't like using real world cultures in fantasy because real world cultures rely on real world history to become what they are, so presumably there would be a lot less of that in a setting where gods and magic are real.
We know the Moonshaes, the Anauroch, Mulhorand, and Unther would be drastically different but how we don't have the full details on.
Ed's realms also tends to have magic as rare and more mysterious, and also a lot less trusted, so you don't have the modern D&D everyone and their dog going around with spells and rainbow enchanted armors.

>>90101036
This. I think it's more "Ed Forgotten Realms" and "D&D Forgotten Realms" rather than TSR vs WotC like OP has suggested.

Whenever I see dscussions like this I can't help but remember TSR censoring Ed's MPREG lore and smile.

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>>90100963
>probably pornographic

>>90100963
>Ed's Realms
huh? where can I get this?

>>90102180
A lot of combing through Candlekeep (some of which has been compiled into PDFs or RTF files), twitter, a few youtube videos, and some of it on now defunct sites that I don't even know if the waybackmachine has archived.

>>90102023
Ed Greenwood is a notorious pervert with a grocery list of disgusting fetishes, but to his credit, is not a pedophile.

>>90102622
Sounds pretty based desu, but does that bleed into forgotten realm?

>>90102721
You've got no idea, my man.

>>90102721
Public incest orgies are the normal way to celebrate holidays in FR. Get out on the streets and fuck everyone you see.

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This might be the place to ask -- Realmschads, what is some essential Greenwood literature? I don't mean just gamebooks, but FR novels as well. I always wanted to dive into this rabbithole, and I feel the time is nigh.

>>90102799
give me a pointer bro

>>90104200
Spellfire (especially the extended cut) is a pretty solid novel to see the kinds of characters he likes in his adventuring parties.
Some people like the Elminster books, others hate them, I'm kind of in the middle.
Cormyr: A Novel, isn't a masterpiece by any means, but is pretty good.
His short stories scattered throughout various compilation books are pretty solid quick reads.

For sourcebooks
>Grey Box
>City System
>Volo's Guide to the North
>Volo's Guide to the Lands of Intrigue
>Volo's Guide to Cormyr
>Volo's Guide to Waterdeep
>Volo's Guide to the Sword Coast
>Volo's Guide to the Dalelands
>Volo's Guide to All Things Magical
>Ruins of Undermountain (Original)
>Lords of Darkness (Original)
Should be good ones to read.

>>90104200
I always enjoyed the Volos Guides, gave a good feel for what kind of world he envisaged
Spellfire was pretty fun too, though I wouldn't bother reading past the first one

>>90102622
I mean lets be for real, most fantasy these day is so sexless and bland that I'd prefer to read that over half the shit that gets put out these days.

>>90104325
for his /tg/ tier autistic attempts to make a nuanced functioning world that revolves around dungeon crawling lemmings, check out Elminster's Forgotten Realms

He writes his novels the same way he DMs, with little to no plot, lots of irrelevant worldbuilding, and heavy reoccurring use of his favorite tropes and stock characters

"Making of a Mage" is one of the better ones since at least it has a plot while also including most of his favorite tropes like old white lechers scoring 10/10 ladies, max-edgelord villains to remove any doubt they deserve to die, the obligatory rampage though the castle and pandemonium in the royal court scenes, a lot of slapstick comedy, and general horniness throughout

>>90101080
OP literally had TSR and WotC on one side and Ed on the other so he's agreeing with you.

>>90101732
Based. A shame they kept the weird "Turns a pregnancy into mere extra biomass and fills out curves then turns it back into a baby later."

>>90101036
Reminds me of earlier Warcraft stuff where Mages were really not trusted.

>>90101732
That one I've never even heard. QRD?

>>90109380
Alustriel Silverhand was famous for tucking and getting fucked thrice daily, with two extra times thrown in as part of various orgies she partook in. She has somewhere in the region of three to four dozen children.

But rather than ballooning like a normal pregnant woman would, she puts on a little bit of weight everywhere every time she is pregnant. So she just looks a bit more THICC than her usual silver haired impossibly fuckable self, while her breasts and so on also canonically swell up with "especially nourishing milk" that "bestows a gift for magic in anybody who drinks it" and then all that extra weight she puts on "all over her body" somehow turns back into a baby.

It's all very much not how biology works. Anywhere, at all, in nature.

>>90109765
source

>>90101036
>Generally speaking Ed doesn't like using real world cultures in fantasy because real world cultures rely on real world history to become what they are
Based. This is why I don't consider places like Kara-Tur and Zakhara to be part of the Realms. They were clearly bolted on by hacks who can't into worldbuilding that isn't "real life medieval country + magic"

>>90110979
Zakhara is good though.

>>90111068
Not him, but I think Zakhara is held back by having islamic culture in a world where people actually can and do use magic and bind genies and shit.

>>90111068
Sure, but it also doesn't even remotely feel like a natural part of the realms, and was clearly haphazardly duct-taped onto it.

>>90101036
And not using real life cultures differentiates his work from one of the biggest early settings, Mystara, which deliberately uses real world cultures for almost literally everything.

>>90110979
Kara-Tur was originally going to be attached to Greyhawk and a little remains in OA1.

>>90111094
You say that, but that's a BIG part of Islam. In the Asian parts of Turkey (if you ever go to Turkey you can actually see the divide between the Asian and European parts very clearly), Arabia, Egypt, the Muslim Balkans, and Muslim parts of Africa rituals are performed to bind Djinn and exorcise them. To them Djinn are as real as wolves and bears and deer in the mountains are for you and I. Just because we don't see them doesn't mean they are real. When I was in Arabia I witnessed such an exorcism done to my cousin (really 8 generations distance, but if you know they're relations they're cousins), and a priest read from an iPad not from a physical book.
With that said, Al-Qadim is WAY more 1001 nights. When I ran it for said cousin, his mom and dad, they didn't realize they were dealing with an Arab based setting until the cousin pointed it out. They just throught it was generic 1001 nights as seen by Europeans. Which it is.
>>90114108
100% agree with this one. It's good, my favorite setting, but holy shit does it not fit FR at all. So I never actually use it as part of FR but its own thing.

>>90114108
>was clearly haphazardly duct-taped onto it
Thats usual for basically all of the pre 1990 TSR settings, though. Mostly because various zones were haphazardly duct-taped onto the setting.

>>90100963
Only the ones Ed allows since, per the contract with TSR/WotC, anything he writes is automatically FR canon.

>>90123061
Good to hear people still know this. There's only one FR afterall

>>90123163
It was funny when Wizards tried to stop him from publishing a book and he said "that's fine I'll just publish it without your branding" and they realized if he did it would kill *all* of their novel lines and acquiesced.

>>90104325
>>90107894
>>90109142
Thanks for the recommends, fellas!

>>90121193
I see you also played Greyhawk.

>>90100963
It's really easy to pick on the magical realm stuff, reeeaaalllllyyy easy. Ed hasn't said too much though. The Elminster's Realms book is one of the best sources. That or So Sayeth Ed on the Candlekeep forums.

>>90101080
I think OP just lumped TSR and WotC together

>>90123061
>>90123163
>>90123221
Its fascinating how loyal Ed is to his contracts and his word even when it has super fucked him over like with the Spellplague.
The man holds to decades old NDAs nobody gives a shit about anymore because of his principles. Its also likely one of the reasons TSR and later pre-5e Wizards was so willing to work with him.

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>>90130108
Yeah this is crazy

>>90130108
I always had a bit of respect for Ed for being unashamed about his horny and to my knowledge not backpedaling in current year - although he's probably too irrelevant for anyone to want to head hunt him and cancel him. But seeing this kind of integrity just increases it.

I'm sure now someone's going to come along and say he raped and murdered a girl with Bob Saget back in the '80s or something now.

>>90130251
Nah, wasn't Bob Saget, it was Gilbert Godfried.

Honestly I feel like a lot of Ed's deviance fits into the modern day "Safe Horny."

>>90109928
He posts a lot on these forums right here. I'm not familiar with Anon's milk claims, but check out this: here's an archive of all his "answers" on some ye olde forums, you're looking at the March 2004 entry for her having weird curve expansion rather than a regular pregnancy. http://www.candlekeep.com/library/articles/sse/so_saith_ed.htm

To be honest, that's honestly a bit tame considering what he'd put players at cons through. Check this: "At long-ago GenCons I often ran Realms play sessions in which PCs were sent with an urgent message to Alustriel [a stranger to them by all but reputation] through a secret portal that admitted them to the Palace but removed all metal -- weapons and, er, BELT BUCKLES -- and all enchanted materials [items and garments vanished, spells operating on the bodies of the PCs just melted away] in doing so. Stumbling over their own falling clothing but under imperative, overriding orders to get to Alustriel right away (and bearing a pass that would let them do so), the racing PCs were directed to a certain chamber, and burst into it to discover that it was taken up by a vast, shallow bath filled with warm rosewater and naked people making love. SOMEwhere in all of that sliding flesh was Alustriel. Their mission: find her.
I loved watching players' faces, right at that moment."

>>90109342
>Reminds me of earlier Warcraft stuff where Mages were really not trusted.

That was only really in Knaak's writings, and that's because he was originally a D&D writer so pretty much ported it into that world.

>>90130108
Ed's an old school dude. Your word is your bond type. I don't think this had anything to do with TSR's willingness to work with him. Ascribing logic to TSR decisions is a crapshoot, really. Wizards on the other hand almost certainly had no fucking clue Ed was still bound by NDAs signed with TSR because there's no chance that those documents made it through the sale.

The reason is, at the end of the day, he's Ed Greenwood. He basically wrote most of the mythos that players engage with.

>>90130360
Ed's mostly safe because he was in a hippie community. The women were either there for the free love, the drugs, or the party, and as a result neither care nor remember much about all the sex and what was consensual as the entire setup was intentionally consensual.

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>>90108515

This desu. I have a lot of respect for Ed Greenwood escaping corpo-hell by writing cool power fantasy and fetish stories where him, his friends, and everyone's wives/girlfriends are immortal wizards who constantly fuck.

The constant attempts to pathologize male fantasies gets annoying. Like everyone screeching about BG3 players romancing the goth half-elf instead of the literal monster from another dimension or the dude who can transform into a bear. Or how everyone stayed home rather than watching an 80 year old Indiana Jones lose everything and get bossed around by his feminist niece and that's apparently a bad thing.

No wonder weebshit is taking off. Animu/mango is still willing to create stories that appeal to straight dudes and so you see stories about a guy who has to hide out in an all-girls or gets treated like a pet by a pretty demoness or whatever.

>>90111068
Zakhara was designed to be it's own setting. Being good or not has no bearing on whether it ought to be part of the Realms

>>90132227
Ehhh no, the manuals up through WC3 and early wow etc had Arcane and Fel and Necrotic closely tied (Till later stuff started ignoring that and eventually Chronicle made Arcane and Fel opposites) Grubb's novel The Last Guardian also had it, as I think did Metzen's short story with Eitrig and Tirion mentioned it briefly.

WC3's cutscenes had the Kirin Tor and the "mysterious Bird Wizard" get kinda soft and hard ignored respectively about the plague.

>>90133746
>attempts to pathologize male fantasies gets annoying.
If male fantasies and the male sex drive wasn't inherently toxic in the first place, we wouldn't HAVE to pathologize it.

why the fuck do people run anything in FR
literally 90% of the fun of DMing is making your own setting

>>90136831
So how long ago did you replace your dick with part of your colon?

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>>90136988
Some people like having some details done for them so they can focus on the aspects they want to customize/modify.

>>90102023
Ed Greenwood inserted a lot of his fetishes into the Forgotten Realms lore, such as the 'festhall' stuff, which was basically a brothel in most settlements. Most women in his version of the setting are massive whores who are happy to have casual sex. Also, incest is widely practiced for recreational sex and bonding among family members.
>>90102622
His OC Elminister fucks his adoptive daughter that he raised.

>>90108515
The hell are you talking about? Fantasy seems really horny these days. Game of Thrones and the Witcher have greatly normalized that, far more than Conan or Elric ever did.

>>90104200
Seconding Spellfire and I think of the Elminister books, Elminister: The Making of a Mage is the one to read.

>>90123061
Except the Festhall and his fetish shit. Seriously, that stuff makes the anime Isekai garbage look tame by comparison.

>>90137687
he probably means dnd and other gaming products which once targeted horny male teens and uni students, but have now have toned down the fan service to appeal to a wide range of introverts of various ages and genders

>>90136831
>toxic
>we
so fucking sick of these pod people.

>>90136988
Less work for some people, familiarity for players, and gives you a bunch of modules and stock characters to use for your campaigns. I only do homebrew, but I understand part of the appeal.

>>90100963
Well, WOTC realms canon exclusivity. Which is to say that Crawford, I think it was Crawford, said that nothing prior to 2014 was canon any longer. That attitude is a big part of the reason I hate 5e.

>>90139270
It was Crawford.
>https://comicbook.com/gaming/news/dungeons-dragons-canon-roleplaying-game-novels/

I have a suspicion it was because he was getting mad nobody liked his Tome of Foes, elf lore, and shit, and those people saying it didn't match what was elsewhere. So he declared everything else non canon.

The result was a massive backlash and complaining. So about a week later he sent Perkins out to try and write something conciliatory and take the bullet for him.
>https://dnd.wizards.com/news/dnd-canon

Crawford seems to have a lot of pull in WotC nowadays. It used to be that he was strictly Lead Rules Designer, Perkins was Lead Story Designer, and Mearls was Lead Producer (with Crawford as secondary lead). Then Perkins got demoted or something when Mearls became Creative Director, only for Mearls to leave WotC in 2019. Crawford moved up to Lead Producer/Designer when Ray Winninger came in as the new Creative Director. It was also around then - 2019 - that Perkins up and disappeared from the livestream games he ran (Acquisitions Incorporated and Dice Camera Action, Crawford taking over the former).

Something happened in 2019 that set it all off.

>>90140339
>only for Mearls to leave WotC in 2019
Didn't Mearls get demoted and soft-fired because he was involved in some controversy with Zach Sabbath?
I vaguely recall that and an internal restructuring happening around the same time with WotC getting new people from a marketing firm to head their brands.

>>90140339
>nobody liked his Tome of Foes,
Inliked ToF's take on Duergar. The real stinker was Monsters of the Multiverse regurgitating VGM and MM and still not giving us Non-Evil Gnolls.

>>90140477
>>90140339
Mearls was moved into Executive Producer and lost his Creative Director position very close to the Zach S incident. Crawford had said on Twitter that he never worked with Zach however, so it would be unlikely that he'd be caught up in the heads rolling.

>>90140621
Er, that Crawford had never worked with Zach that is. Mearls had.

>>90140339
Mike mearls doxxed a bunch of people when Zach Sabbath asked for a list of people who had opposed him being a consultant due to his then ongoing legal dispute with his ex-girlfriend.
Zach and his fans proceeded to harass the people on the list.
Mearls having violated HR policies but not been involved in anything media-worthy, was moved.

>>90140339
Perkins always seemed like a genuinely good dude. Crawford has always struck me as a cunt. I can absolutely see Crawford being a power hungry little shit and then losing said shit when people don't like his dogshit lore.

>>90140339
Here's what I don't get. Why do creators come into a space with pre-established lore, a space where that lore has decades of history, with a fanbase that has built up around and because of that lore and then change the lore? If you could make your own Forgotten Realms, you would have done that, because creating a huge, sprawling, successful IP is really the jackpot as a creator. But if you couldn't do that, what makes you think that applying your headcanon to something that was already successful doing something else will work?

This obviously goes beyond D&D, but I've seen enough of it, with the predictable result of the new lore IP failing in degrees, that it seems to be its own trend. But it's a trend I don't understand.

Why do people keep making this same mistake?

>>90142949
They want to make their own thing, but they are told they can only work inside the lines created by others who could do their own thing. So they try and push it into the shape they wanted to be working on.
And in the case of 5E they realised the lore didn't mean anything becuase most people didn't play in FR, so they could stop really caring about it.

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Does this box set still hold up as a general guide to the FR campaign setting?

>>90143229
Depends on what era you're playing in. 3rd ed makes some changes (Thay going for a more mercantile approach, City of Shade returning), 4th apparently makes huge changes but I'm not familiar with it, then 5e apparently retcons a bunch of 4th but again I am not familiar with the details
If you're asking if it works as source material for a campaign setting, then yeah, sure. It still has the 2e general design philosophy that humans/elves/dwarves/etc are the protagonists so you wont see tieflings or dragonborn (dragonbait notwithstanding) or other trappings of modern dnd but that may or may not appeal to you

>>90143165
>They want to make their own thing, but they are told they can only work inside the lines created by others who could do their own thing. So they try and push it into the shape they wanted to be working on.
So, really want to build trucks but you can't find work building trucks and you get a job at a car manufacturer. Wouldn't it make more sense to bust your ass and work really hard to make the best car possible so that later, when you have a reputation as a solid worker, you can make a case for designing and building trucks? Am I fucking retarded or does this not make more sense than being hired by a car manufacturer and building shitty cars that larp as trucks?

>people didn't play in FR
I suppose, but I always saw FR as the go to setting for generic D&D lore. Sure, other settings had their own particularities and those were fun, Krynn's Draconians are infinitely more interesting than generic ass Dragonborn, but when I needed basic info about basic D&D shit I looked to FR.

>>90130130
That was a fun video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MQBgqdEArYE

>>90133746
>meals of preventing contraception
based retard

>>90133746
I want to believe that at some point the pendulum will swing back and people will understand the truth of what you're saying, but, and maybe this is just me being demoralized, I half wonder if we're too out of whack for things to ever get back to sanity again. Like maybe we've gone too far in one direction and the whole fucking thing is going to tip over.

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>>90133746
>After all, you're talking to a man who's discussed the visual success of her breast augmentation with a perfect stranger at a LIBRARIAN'S convention, very much in public
>There's nothing illegal about inbreeding
>Sometimes brothers hitch up with sisters - and uncle/niece and aunt/nephew pairings are quite common and aren't even thought of (in the Realms) as inbreeding
>many of the Realms deities encourage "sex for fun" or even "sex for religious rapture"
>"it's only incest if the female partner gets pregnant"
Ed-sama...

>>90144338
All these newfriends that don't understand that Greenwood has the most well funded, successful Magical Realm in the history of pop culture. It's amusing when their eyes are opened.

>>90137752
Nothing in the site rules says you have to join a Neo-Nazi hivemind. Cope more.

>>90143229
It focuses on the Dalelands, but it's a good start. It predates the Time of Troubles.

>>90143608
>trucks
You're assuming there's upward mobility in this industry.
The RPG industry has almost always been about close-knit groups and friends working together to produce products.
TSR tried to industrialize it, and they crashed and burned as a result.
WotC tried to industrialize it, and only got as far as they did because it turned out M:tG was making ALL of the money, so they could hide D&D's losses behind it.
Now that Hasbro has forced their finances into the open (or rather had done so over a decade ago now), D&D has to keep making money and seeing year after year profits.
This means there are no real changes, no major risks (4th edition being the exception, but from what leaked out the Devs had to practically beg to be allowed that risk, and then when their project failed they got downsized from a massive development group to less than 6 people), and the only people who see promotions are marketing people who produce short term profits.
Someone like Crawford may have become creative director, but that isn't really a position with any major control, because everything he does still has to go through the marketing people who determine what is and isn't actually good for the brand/company, so all he gets to do is boss around the other slightly more powerless people around him.
So he either splits off, doesn't do anything noteworthy until his noncompete agreement ends, and then creates his own thing, or he sucks the teat of his corporate masters, likely justifying to himself that it's better him than someone who cares even less.

1/2

>>90136998
>>90137752
Stop taking obvious bait.

>>90143608
>>90144539
>FR
WotC thought selling the FR would be their ticket to success, so they pushed it hard at the start of 5e.
Then Crit Role and Stranger Things happened, and now it's pretty clear if they could end the FR without any major contractual issues, they would. The FR logo appears less and less, the FR products are buried and hidden (someone actually had to make a thread on the FR subreddit recently just to inform people of all of the Adventurer's League shit, and other non-promoted products that have nu-Lore in them, because no one knew).
As to the setting being the source of Generic lore, it's strange.
On one hand, Greenwood, the creator of FR, is responsible for A LOT of the lore in generic D&D, afaik the "Ecology of X" articles that fluffed out loads of monsters, factions, etc, in D&D were his idea, and many based off of his notes based on things he wanted to explain within the D&D ruleset.
On the other hand, 2e kind of didn't pick and choose a setting, and 3.5e went out of its way to say Greyhawk is default and everything is Greyhawk unless stated otherwise, and then retconned the shit out of FR details to make it more like Greyhawk in places.
Then we had 4e taking a wrecking ball to the setting, and 5e now saying the setting is the main one, but we're retconning (a lot) of 4e, and keeping the 3.5e retcons, and also retconning more because there are some problematic things about old lore.

So it's a fucking mess.

>>90143757
There's reason to believe that the overton window is forever fucked, but that's more an economics and politics discussion.
I also hope that it's not, but I think short of the west seeing a major cultural shift away from culture wars and back to class warfare, there's no fixing it.

>>90143757
>I want to believe that at some point the pendulum will swing back
I think it will, and you might even live to see it if you're young enough right now, but things usually have to get a lot worse before they can get better.

>>90144548
How is it bait if people genuinely believe that dumb shit?

>>90144591
Yeah, I'd really like to expand on what you're talking about -- I've never heard of the Overton window applied to anything but culture -- and for as much as I lambasted the notion of class when I was younger, because I had never then and have never now met any flavor of communist or Marxist who wasn't absolutely useless, I am increasingly looking at the world through that lens.

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>>90143757

I do feel like there's the beginning of a movement to just give the fans what they want. I mean, I think ultimately products have to make money and most nerds are white or Asian guys(or blerds or Hispanic autists who think like white dudes) so it's futile to just keep chasing them away hoping the kind of customers you want will just come rushing in to fill the lacuna.

Or in the case of these decades-later sequels, you just need some writers who actually like the characters/stories. EG, something like Cobra Kai or Top Gun Maverick. It's not that hard, just rehash the original story. No one watches nostalgia-fest media hoping to be surprised or challenged.

>>90144680
This is the last I'll say on the topic.
I also think Marxists and Communists are full of shit.
However, there's a reason the founding documents of the US speak about the importance of making sure landed nobility never becomes a thing again, and it's very easy to look at the US' current political class, current upper class, and the systems at work that keep money within the same few families and those fortunate enough to break into their circles as a failure to maintain that credo.
But short of someone like Teddy coming back to life and being given a license to kill anyone who resists his orders, I don't see the US making the changes necessary to restore itself short of a major collapse. I do however see adjustments in the relatively near future to allow it to shamble on longer until someone else makes the big changes and causes conflict as a result.

>>90144775
Yet their entire focus *Was* on Landholders. Maybe not as conventional European style nobility, but there was a drive for a moral aristocracy and the requirement of landholding to vote. Just, y'know it could be a plot as small as a subsistence farm.

>>90144875
>it could be a plot as small as a subsistence farm
That to me speak to the intent to ensure that events that impact a community are decided on by the members of that community. If it really were about establishing, but tacitly rebranding, a European style landed gentry then the land requirements would have been much more robust. But I think >>90144775 has the right of it, in more way than one, and we should table this discussion here.

Thank you both for engaging and keeping this civil and productive.

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>>90144680

>I had never then and have never now met any flavor of communist or Marxist who wasn't absolutely useless, I am increasingly looking at the world through that lens.

What's funny is if you study the the USSR, they would have had zero tolerance for stuff nu-Communists in the USA do. EG encouraging people to be overweight, riling up the minority ethnicities against the majority, refusing to work, etc.

>>90145158
the american pov of what is or was an actual communist or marxist has been so far detached from reality for so many decades now that it's pointless to even hold a discussion about it

>ABSOLUTE FOOKIN' STORYSHIT.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MQBgqdEArYE

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>>90145980

>>90146304
>Be me
>Read the thread
>Differences between TSR-WOTC Realms and Ed's Realms
>Post a difference
>Be anon 'read the thread faggot' refuses to elaborate, leaves.
???

>>90109765
This is some patreon erotica writer tier stuff right here.

>>90109765
>It's all very much not how biology works. Anywhere, at all, in nature.
Magic, motherfucker.

>>90100963
Greenwood's realms are also in question now for me after the 5e Thay book he published had a wave of "free the slaves" take over the entire nation of lawful evil wizards and undead run by a lich. So I guess necromancy is fine but not slavery? They're evil they should be fine with it.
Forgotten Realms was good only up until they released 4e, all the lore after that has been some form of damage control and social media chasing.

>>90143690
preventing contraception


:/

>>90147290
And with Ed you can't even tell if that's an intentional or unintentional double-negative!

>>90147377
Reminds me of the lack of editing in the 5e Yawning Portal. They don't seem the know the difference between "ancestor" and "descendant" and use them interchangeably. Years later and I've never seen anyone call them on it.

>>90147243
The worst part to consider is he might be contractually obligated to have that
We know WotC has plans for Thay, so if he was consulted, or just out of his own sense of honor talked with them about it, he would likely be required to include things wotc is doing, such as removing slavery from the setting.

>>90147437
Only GMs read those books, if you're just a player the only reason to read them is if you love the lore and hobby tourists don't have the attention span for that.
There are basically too few people who care about 5e FR products. Hell, even in older editions what kind of seasoned GM only runs premade modules instead of using them, at best, as inspiration for his own campaigns?

>>90143608
Bold of you to assume competence is rewarded when working under contract

>>90104200
Erevis Cale Trilogy
Evermeet: Isle of the Elves
The Dark Elf Trilogy
The War of the Spider Queen series
The Crucible: The Trial of the Cyric the Mad

>>90147494
You're probably right, it just stuck with me because the Thay book was supposed to be "unofficial" and therefore theoretically allowed to have more honest world building. Pretty much the only time I'd drop real money for a 5e product would've been his ""unofficial"" FR lore books.

>>90147533
Oh you meant ones written by Greenwood. My bad. Those are just good FR books, though.

>>90147533
>>90147589
>>90104200
The Watercourse trilogy was pretty good too, though I'm sure current WotC hates that past-WotC published it, given that its quite heavily inspired by The Fountainhead.

>>90137687
It's not the same at all. GoT is much more about sex as a power play, rape, etc. Ed's stuff, and older school fantasy sex, was much more about being titillating and seductive, and ultimately there to be hot and to show how desirable the characters were.

>>90141264
[citation needed]

>>90147717
[Legally Actionable]

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>>90144756
Never trust an article saying "this thing is going away" or "this thing is dead" because if that was really true, they wouldn't need to write an article claiming it was.

>>90146367
Someone already posted the link to that video, you cockmongler

>>90137678
>His OC Elminister fucks his adoptive daughter that he raised.
Yeah but she's like 30 by the time he does, so again: not a pedophile.

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>>90148717
Seems pretty based to me.

>>90144489
>hivemind
sure thing, freak. tell me more about 'we' think about toxic shittypeople - are they okay, or just not okay?

>>90148605
So now it's posted again no need to get your panties in a bunch.

>>90137678
>incest is widely practiced for recreational sex and bonding among family members.
Source?

>>90133746
>>90153981
Oh, I see, I should’ve just kept reading the thread.

>>90154075
Remember this mistake, learn from it, and grow as a fa/t g/uy.

>>90133746
>It's only incest if mom gets pregnant
I'd believe he was being sardonic but throwing the next bit in about satisfying family curiosity and indulging feelings of mutual affection before going to look for other sex partners makes me think he's not. What the fuck is wrong with him? No don't answer that.
Y'know I can't help shake the feeling I had some slight influence on the setting for 4th edition. Coming towards the end of the 3rd edition product line there was this extended FR discussion on the old D&d forums the gist of which was the high level mary sue world savers. I and some other anti sues argued against the opposite faction and somehow I ended up on a tangent of autistically fan wanking Asmodeus at great length as well as lots people chiming in who also in the camp that The Seven Sisters, Elminster, Khelben et al devalued player characters' efforts to prevent Realms Shaking Events™. I find it curious clerics of Asmodeus became a thing in 4th edition FR and seemingly at the time the high level sues weren't around. So in some ways may be I'm responsible for fucking up the realms somewhat and if true desu I'm proud of that achievement as an innovator of hot new fresh memes after coming to understand Ed Greenwood for the storyshitter he is.

>>90155243 (cont)
At one point before the internet myself and my then gaming group believed Greenwood to be a hard core gamer being naively informed of our opinions from the likes of Ruins of Undermountain and Ruins of Myth Drannor. So much so a phrase was coined 'the Ed Greenwood style' intended to describe a snowball effect of challenges that can quickly escalate beyond the capabilities of the player characters, anyone who has played Undermountain or Myth Drannor will know what I'm talking about. Then the internet came along, though not for a while mind and with that the knowledge of how misguided this perception was. This is an unparalleled storyshit
>>90143637
So if I'm responsible even for the tiniest fraction of what 4th edition did to the forgotten realms then job well done as far as I'm concerned. I also called 'the Old Sage' from the wotc forums out as a cunt or words to that effect, so that was nice too.

>>90155243
>>90155255
Anyone that was well immersed in FR lore back then would've been able to call out what was coming based on the plot seeds laid down in the various novels and releases. There aren't many but such was being a nerd, once upon a time, before lore and settings and media were all watered down for mass consumption.

>>90101036
>Generally speaking Ed doesn't like using real world cultures in fantasy because real world cultures rely on real world history to become what they are, so presumably there would be a lot less of that in a setting where gods and magic are real.
This should be the quality standard when it comes to worldbuilding and a big part of why Pathfinder's Golarion is so dogshit. The other problem with trying to use real world cultures in your setting is it's catering to schizos, normies, and everyone else who struggles to separate fiction from reality because they're obsessed with "representation"

>>90155337
>Anyone that was well immersed in FR lore back then would've been able to call out what was coming based on the plot seeds laid down
This discussion occurred while 3rd edition was still being published toward the end of its line but certainly before 'Abeir-Toril' was being used as a throw around for foreshadowing purposes. Yes I am aware Abeir-Toril has always been from the start a word in the FR lexicon.

>>90149125
pedo image macro

>>90155428
I didn't mean Abeir-Toril specifically. I called stuff out too because I was well immersed in the lore. Though part of it is that old FR was full of plot threads for them to pick up.

>>90155514
Just had a look on the wikipedia and Abeir-Toril in the way it's taken now seems to be spun while cloth from 4th edition. I may be wrong but I don't recall this concept being part of 3rd, 2nd or 1st but I may be wrong.

>>90155553
>while cloth
whole cloth

>>90155514
>old FR was full of plot threads for them to pick up.
Which they're still doing.
Tyranny is based off of a throwaway plotline from Sea of Fallen Stars.
Storm King is from Giantcraft
Undermountain is just Undermountain again.
Descent is a cross between a throwaway 3e plot and the 2e adventure in the Vilhon Reach where the players have to stop a demon train from breaking a hole in reality.

And to further support your point, since the introduction of the shadow weave they made it clear something big was going to happen with that.
Cyric getting more attention as the modules went on and a throwaway line about Shar having sent one of her chosen to make a super portal network for an unknown goal also made it clear something big and shady was planned.
The return of the city of Shade was remarkably quiet, almost as if it was there waiting for a major plotline (which eventually came).
The exact ramifications were unknown of course, but from what has leaked out the majority of the Spellplague was marketing decisions on "what sells?" But all of the major seeds were set up.
It's just a shame that 100 year time skip to dump aside old books + Dragonborn had to be a part of it, but apparently someone in marketing thinks lizards are hot, and they do sell surprisingly well, though my surprise could just be from my bias as a non furry.

>>90155553
Its very likely that most of the details were fleshed out for 4e to make room for the committee-developed dragon race that supplanted drow and tieflings for popularity amongst edgelord players.
I tend to make them regular lizardfolk when I gm 5e, something I don't expect to do again anytime soon.

>>90155553
Yes. Abeir Toril was originally the name of the planet.
Then in late 3e they dropped the Abeir part, iirc either the 3e Draconomicon or Races of the Dragon that explained this with how the Sea of Fallen Stars actually happened because Io cast METEO on the planet in ancient history, creating the sea of fallen stars and getting banished to a twin planet as a result.
It was one of the biggest asspulls of 3.5e but it did happen there.

>>90155590
The timeline skip is what annoys me the most. When I heard grumblings that Greenwood and Salvatore were undoing the mess there was no going back and saying "its still 1370s DR" and it seems like current FR is "every piece of lore ever was valid if you want thats why Myrkul is around again."
It did get me to come back to FR for one big campaign but I turned away again around the time they started listening to social media trolls on what orcs supposedly represented.

>>90155623
>It was one of the biggest asspulls of 3.5e but it did happen there.
I don't believe this is correct according to the wikipedia the prehistoric sundering was as introduced as a canon in 4th. I remember the meteor thing from much earlier I believe Pirates of the Sea of Fallen Stars mentioned it if not even earlier sources.

>>90133746
Can’t wait to let the Imoenfags on the vidya boards know.

>>90155723
My mistake, Grand History of the Realms says continents vanished during Io's bullshit, but it doesn't explicitly say they magic'd off, just that the seas rearranged and entire continents "disappeared".
Then there are no further mentions of "Abeir" in the rest of the book.

To be honest I prefer the 1e version where dragons were an artificial slave race, similar to elves, and then an ice age happened and completely fucked over the creator races.

>>90156066
Still inferior to Aerie.

>>90156241
Aerie needs to shut up and just cast regenerate on her disgusting wing nubs already.

>>90156431
She's too busy experiencing screaming orgasms from both getting plowed and enjoying it. If she can find time between absolutely milking Bhaalspawn cock dry of its divine ranks and cranking out heirs she'll take your recommendation into consideration.

>>90156090
I remember when Grand History of the Realms came out and the way the excitement turned sour on the forums (at Candlekeep) and the original author of the fanmade timeline that was used for the book even came out and said he was as surprised as everyone else at the spellplague wrecking ball.
Those early posts suggesting Greenwood had undertones of regret of the way the setting was handled...though to be honest I'm having trouble remembering exactly where they came from, if they were secondhand or not.
Went from the FR book I was most excited to buy to the last FR book I ever did.

>>90155514
>>90155553
>>90155590
>>90155671
Ed answered in one of the QnAs that the concept of the Spellplague was something he had presented as a throwaway idea previously, not expecting them to ever actually do it and was shocked when they did.

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>>90100963
I've been reading Empires of the Shining Sea and it's kind of hilarious how ridiculously villainous they made Calimshan. Like no redeeming traits "These people are bad!" levels of writing.

>>90157542
What's the problem there? I'd like Calimshan since I'm a durkaboo. Is it just slavers and miserly ((merchants)) as far as the eye can see?

>>90157554
Basically everything about the culture and law is corrupt and cruel. All levels of society are greedy, corrupt, and backstabbing to an unrealistic degree. Everyone's assassinating everyone levels of shit.

>>90157554
Like it's hard to put it into concise words. For example, there'll be a section on law, and it'll say something like "There are few real laws. Laws are mostly what the local ruler arbitrarily decides and punishments are extremely cruel and never fair. If you have an honor duel, they're actually planning to assassinate you." Or in a section on family "If the kids don't prove themselves within 5 years of turning 15 they'll be cast out into the streets to die for their shameful failure" (which if you're a durkaboo you'll know is pretty off when even the most lazy kid is typically tolerated until he dies or they can find a widow with property to marry him to.)

>>90157542
It's all make sense if you go with the idea that most of the information in the books are tempered with harper propaganda/bias

>>90157542
>>90157554
>>90157571
>>90157628
Is this just bait? Calimshan will never get updated to 5e because its too obviously an "exotic middle east" thing. They'd have to do the same thing they made Greenwood do with Thay where there's suddenly a big progressive movement and there's no more slavery plus everyone's a benevolent genasi or genie now with no sordid history.

>>90157752
>5e
Who the fuck cares about 5e, anon? Empires of the Shining Sea is 2e.

>>90109765
But having a swollen, gravid pregnant belly IN ADDITION TO getting thicc all over is way hotter than the situation you have just described. In my objectively correct opinion, anyway.

>>90157763
Or anything after 5e. Their lore updates are tied to the edition.
Part of the appeal of the Realms as a setting, besides its depth, was that it was, to grudgingly use WotC's terminology, a living setting. It was always being update and not just static. Sure the updates may have been mild for a while before too many Realms Shaking Events and before 4e's stuff but it made it feel alive.
I don't care about 5e, though its better than 4e slightly, and if I had my way the current edition would still be at most 3e (and not 3.5 even). But as a concept of a continuing, living setting for FR? I'd like that.

>>90157838
Well all that's an aside for me. I'm talking about 2e Calimshan, and as far as I know 3 and 3.5e didn't really change anything about it either.

>>90157857
Sure. I mean I explained it. Its an "exotic middle east" trope, that's why Calimshan is the way it is. And I also explained why it'll never get touched again, probably, so its going to be that way unless you want to change it into something else at your table.

>>90155243
It's only incest if mom gets pregnant and the baby is retarded, actually.

>>90100963
Ed's FR are grounded in an early renaissance fantasy milieu.

>>90157929
I'm not asking for it to be changed, I just wanted a minor discussion how how silly hard they wrote them to be villains.

>>90157990
You're right, sorry for misinterpreting that.
For me it seems like they were going for something like if you saw Aladdin as a kid, or ever read the 1001 Nights, they were going for something like that where this location is just so falling apart and corrupt but maybe there are cunning thieves and desperate adventurers (with a heart of gold even?) who'll make something for themselves against all odds there. And for the traveller they can get lost in the mystique of this place where anything can be found for the right price.

>>90136988
>literally 90% of the fun of DMing is making your own setting
90% of the work. Worldbuilding is mostly masturbation, so it makes sense to grab a setting you like and have some enjoyable light reading - and focus your effort on what matters, the actual adventure scenarios.

>>90158025
I dunno Aladdin at least had the Sultan and Jasmine as benevolent, and the common civilians were mostly okay. It was just Jafar and the guards (who he had on the payroll) who were corrupt, kicking his ass fixed the biggest issues. In Calimshan there's really no equivalent, the closest organizations to benevolent are the anti-slavery terrorists, who still outright kill or cause the deaths of random civilians to make a 'point'.

>>90157990
I assume it's flanderization. People tend to fixate on just the genies being jerks because the jerkass ones stand out. I can't tell you about any genies in 1001 nights except for the oneitis cuckold one whose got a waifu in a chest who cheats on him with every man she comes across when he's asleep. I think there's also the one who declares he will kill whoever is the man to free him in some kind of weird roco basilik situation. But I remember there's at least one good one - but again, is it as notable as the captain save a ho genie or salty mad-because-bad genie?

Ed probably just doesn't much like arabian niightts. Given he's on record for disliking ethnic fantasy. Ostensibly that's because they ended up lowering the fantasy bar but it might also just be "I'm not that big on a history book where you throw in genies and spells". I am, but diff strokes diff folks.

>>90158052
The essence is there even if they went a bit hard on it. Its a setting where you have entire governments that worship a god of literal tyranny, afterall. There are temples to good deities there though and just because there's not a lot of focus on them doesn't mean their clerics aren't themselves active.

>>90158065
>People tend to fixate on just the genies being jerks because the jerkass ones stand out.
My formative genie experience is reading Joe Brolly's Genie Chronicles.

>>90157381
>the Spellplague was something he had presented as a throwaway idea previously, not expecting them to ever actually do it and was shocked when they did
That's pretty funny. It feels like a wtf moment, but it being one both in and out of canon is hilarious.

>>90136988
Less work to DM, information is readily available to players, and they might want to make hooks of their own.

Trying to make a cleric in a homebrew setting is hell compared to Faerun, for instance. In Faerun, I can read up on Cyric or Ilmater and develop a nuanced take on their philosophies which I can then implement in the form of a PC. With a DM's homebrew setting, I have to ask them what deities are being made and hope they give a good and interesting response.

>>90158709
In the last homebrewed game I ran I just let the cleric players come up with their own deities and then helped make sure they fit my setting.
Not that I disagree about playing in a premade setting, I tend to prefer enjoying a shared world with others as much as I enjoy homebrewing.

>>90158857
>I just let the cleric players come up with their own deities and then helped make sure they fit my setting.
Yeah, that works, but homebrew worldbuilding has to be collaborative (at least in my opinion). That means you're limited by communication abilities, and an autist DM or an autist player can't get the full experience like they can with pre-written stories.

>>90158873
Yeah I have to agree that coming in with a shared expectation of a setting is easier on the workload.

>>90101036
>Generally speaking Ed doesn't like using real world cultures in fantasy because real world cultures rely on real world history

Which would be fine IF the realms had literally ANY depth of history to it at all. The realms literally feel horribly berift of any depth to it at all...instead it has npcs engaged in futile fantasy trope bullshit that only has a very tiny scope. There's a bland hyper reliance on magic but a complete lack of actually thinking through of anything to its logical end result. I compare it to greyhawk with its history of migrations, wars,fall enempires which had genuinely affecting the world history of the setting because it came from wargamers (who appreciate history) instead of roleplayers who tend not to. If you want an even better example go read Dangerous Journeys Epic of Aerth. Thats a fantasy version of our own world with fantasy overlay, and with a parallel Fae realm decades before wotc added that stuff...its great because it leverages real history in great ways and adds hyperboria, Ur, Atlantis and lots more in an integrated world history with politics, wars, trade, etc. The Forgotten realms started okay in its 1st ed...but turned into an Elminster dmpc circle jerk

>>90137678
So basically he IS using historical accuracy in his setting. You need to read more about actual history with all its real warts and everything...its called the worlds oldest profession for a reason. Sheesh.

>>90158999
>No depth to the realms
You're right for modern realms but not the older realms lore, though the eras presented for play tend to have static boundaries which I guess might be a valid complaint. Most of the regions on the map have histories and aren't just black and white "this is just France but fantasy" like one might suggest Cormyr is on a cursory reading.

>>90159030
Funny enough temple prostitutes are actually an exceedingly rare thing historically. Like for a long time there have been theories assigning it to this and that goddess, but in all of west Eurasia the only goddess with confirmed temple prostitutes was Ishtar, we can't even find any evidence Aphrodite had any.

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>>90143581
>It still has the 2e general design philosophy
Umm that's the 1e version there...that's the superior version, the 2e forgotten realms is this (much shittier) one. Stick to the 1e one, it's easily the best one without all the over emphasis on dmpc bullshit.

>>90155395
>Golarion
Golarion is this and that on it. Some places are completely unabashed on their real life inspiration (Taldar), others aren't even trying to be a real place at all (Numeria, which while 100% ripped from pulp, isn't historical whatsoever.)

>>90159063
>You're right for modern realms but not the older realms lore,

The 1st edition fr was fine...it was oldschool, gave lot of lore etc and built a great starting point (the edition with the mongul looking guy on a horse) but by 2e...it was being greenwoodized..meaning too much emphasis on the dm pcs and the clear impact of player characters having outsized effects in the world. The focus shifted from world building to narative.

>>90159303
mind you...this just imo.

>>90159303
I'm not sure I've ever met an FR fan who was also a fan of DMPCs like Elminster running around as anything more than just like distant elements that exist somewhere in the realms but aren't present in the current campaign.
Best I could get is someone who maybe likes Khelben because he doesn't meddle as much as Elminster does.

>>90159340
I've seen people who like Elminster, but as a novel and frame character and not someone getting in their way while adventuring.

>>90159354
For as much noise as I hear on /tg/ about Elminster the DMPC, and I'm not saying he isn't that for Greenwood in many respects, I never played an FR game where anyone used him as anything other than a glorified quest giver or peripheral character. So I don't know where the whole DMPC critique comes from, though I will admit I rarely browsed Candlekeep back in the day so if it comes from there then that's on me.

>>90159371
>So I don't know where the whole DMPC critique comes from
Low IQ people who don't like the idea that someone put there, especially an NPC, is more powerful than they are. It ruins their power fantasy.

>>90159371
>>90159383
The fear is that if the players tried to change the political situation on the Sword Coast or the western Sea of Fallen Stars, Elminster would logically show up to fuck them up and enforce the status quo (along with the Harpers.) If your players are low ambition ('I just want to adventure', 'I'm fine being Elminster's minion') then obviously he won't be an issue for you.

>>90159354
Yeah the novels are one thing.
If I'm understanding the root of your earlier comment (assuming you're still that anon) about the realms, its tied to the idea that maybe the realms are less deep because powered DMPCs have too much influence on the various factions. I could sortof see that, especially in later editions where these DMPCs start turning more into setting cheerleaders (why are Mirt and Volo still around? Everyone named managed to find some kind of life extention magic).
The answer is supposed to be that there's essentially a cold war between all the powerful spellcasters that prevents them all from directly influencing things.
When I run my realms I like the older edition concept that anyone around level 10 is rare and above that enters into legendary status, it's still a high magic setting but not the ridiculousness we see in the new DnD movie.

>>90159398
I can see the Harpers doing that, because they're the fantasy CIA. I cannot see Elminster doing that if you're just changing lines on a map. Now if you want to create a new version of the Weave or you want to fuck with Mystra or some other metaphysical bullshittery, sure. I can see Elminster giving a fuck. But if you just want to kick over an anthill to make your own anthill? Shit happens all the time and he doesn't say boo.

>>90159383
Fair.

>>90133746
uhhh but retard-kun gay sex and monsterfucking IS also part of Greenwood's fantasies
he's an equal opportunity pervert

>>90159418
Wasn't my comment, I'm just throwing my cents in (I just found a bunch in the drawer and nobody uses coins anymore.)
>>90159424
Elminster does fuck with people if he can construe it as being Mystra's will or dealing with magic in some way. He's actively protected Thay in the past for that reason. You also forget that he was formerly associated with the Harpers.

So what's a good place to read about what a typical wizard's apprenticeship is like?

>>90159447
Elminster will not fuck with you generally as long as your actions.
>Decrease the amount of magic in The Realms
As a chosen of Mystra its a core feature of his job to spread magic to the general population, not in a "everyone becomes gods" type of way but in a "Everyone has access to magic items and low level magic" way. Basically Mystra's goal is to turn Toril into Eberon with less industrial tech.
This is also why he stepped in to protect Cormyr the one time, because Cormyr is on its way to eventually becoming a super magic oriented place.
>Fuck with the Harper's during the times he is working with them.
Elminster is one of the big people associated with the Harpers and their goals (Ostensibly because Myth Drannor was getting pretty close to Mytsra's ideal society) and so has maintained and then fucked off multiple times only to come back to set things back on their proper course when they fuck up big time, and then fuck off again.
If you want to involve the Hapers can just say that Elminster is not associated with them right now and your fine.
>Destroy the world
Self Apparent

>>90160352
*as long as your actions don't

>>90159424
Elminster literally does so in more than one novel. Cormyr and Waterdeep are his favourite two places to do it. In 5th edition era he is running Waterdeep's secret police as the power behind the throne and one of his foster daughters and the Seven is the Open Lord.

>>90160850
So why doesn't he do anything about th Lord's Alliance?
I liked him in 4E when he was just a depowered, cranky old man sitting in the Dales refusing to talk to people.

>>90162203
>>90160850
5e lore is turning into a kitchen-sink type setting like Pathfinder is, its best to disregard anything after and including the Spellplague.
They don't even have a full realms campaign book so not even WotC seems to care about keeping stuff current beyond the Sword Coast.

>>90100963
I read somewhere, in some interview with the guy about what kinds of magic exist, that there is some form of Blood Magic that was never in published material due to not wanting to fuel the whole 'D&D = satan!' thing. Among other weird and niche kinds of magic.

Can't find the damn quote, though, so I may have imagined it.

>>90164771
>including the Spellplague.
Mildly disagree, as it produced an actual change to the setting that wasn't forgettable, or just led to more status quo.
It may have been inelegant, but I do think it made for a setting better suited for heroes who were not pre-ordained by the creator in the vein of Dragonlance.

>>90159418
>The answer is supposed to be that there's essentially a cold war between all the powerful spellcasters that prevents them all from directly influencing things.
I can understand this as a setting backstory, but were there any modules that specifically were about breaking this stalemate in one direction or another?
>yes, I understand a DM could create such an adventure, but I mean a module such as the one where you actually slay Tiamat, creating functional, lasting impact on the setting as an upcoming force of renown

>>90164895
The changes were bad, though.

>>90164895
The problem with the Spellplague is more to do with the Abeir returning bit that introduced a lot of critical-role tier dragon race people and hit the reset button on the lore of anywhere so it was just floating rocks high fantasy nonsense.
I mean we could argue that the Spellplague itself with the wizards going crazy on its own is fine because that could be interesting if focused in on without all the other stuff, sure, I just use it as a marker for when their team at WotC decided to throw everything out to capture the mmo crowd for 4e.

>>90165152
The way they just straight up deleted some countries/continents they felt weren't marketable just to plop down Dragonborn and shit in their place was harsh.

>>90164937
Theoretically any module where you help a faction is that, because when written well the appeal of FR as a setting is a focus on smaller, local scale adventures. Instead of saving the world you're supposed to be saving the city or the countryside, or just getting rich.
So a quest where you uncover that the local red wizard enclave is manipulating the town's economy with bullying tactics technically advances the harpers (and possibly the zhents) while moving against Szass Tam's thayvians.
This is out the window in 5e ofcourse, but that was the selling point of FR once, for me, and a big part of why I prefer the older editions' setting.

>>90165230
Not every group is going to want to be so smalltime, especially if the campaign continues past level 10.

>>90165276
Sure?

>>90164895
Kind of like what >>90165230 is getting at.
One of the big appeals of FR was that there weren't supposed to be giant goddamn "The world is ending thanks to Lord Delirium!"
Followed next week by "The world is doomed by the hands of Grrkek the Planet Killer!"
Followed next week by "Captain Hexawing is here to conquer all of the continent!"
It was supposed to be the land of 1,001 adventures for 1,001 adventuring groups, which given the size and scale of some of the regions, could be reasonably done, but people seem to desire smaller worlds with bigger "we stopped the comet" levels of impact.
I don't want to say those people are wrong, but I think it was wrong to try to make the FR appeal to them when it was already functioning as its own setting.

>>90165309
You put it well, I don't have anything against wanting a bigger save the world plot but it was the purview of other settings or perhaps some homebrew campaign. And if you wanted that in FR you could at your table, no one's stopping you as a GM from running whatever.
But this is what Forgotten Realms was meant for, at least that is the impression I got when I first picked it up long ago.

>>90165309
>>90165359
I'd guess there was a gap among official settings for large-scale adventurers. Eberron, Greyhawk, Dragonlance, Dark Sun, and Ravenloft are all poorly suited for it, often even more so than the Forgotten Realms are. Only Spelljammer and Planescape lend themselves to it, and they run into the 'bigger pond' issue where the scale itself is so high that it can still feel like your actions don't have a relevant impact. So, they probably felt that taking the Forgotten Realms and making them a bigger stakes, smaller pond type of setting for the sake of that niche would be easier than trying to make a brand-new setting for them without that same risk of the setting bombing, since it was already established. The failure of the 4e default Points of Light setting probably justified that view, because it ended up being TOO open and TOO vague to catch people's interest.

>>90165419
I think their data harvesting told them that most groups still don't make it passed level 10 anyway though

>>90165458
We're discussing the tendency towards world-ending disasters the players have to stop as a plotpoint. Clearly this is something people care about/want as a story theme even if most players play like two sessions, get bored, and go back to their podcasts.

>>90165419
That's kind of the thing, technically any setting is as good as another for Villain of the Week adventures, but like a Rolan Emmerich movie it's more enjoyable to see the White House blow up than to see the capital of pluto explode, so FR is the natural go to.

>>90165458
That's part of why the setting is squished and most high CR enemies/NPCs have been tuned down to lower power levels while PCs have been tuned up in power level.

>>90165487
This is cared about by players, yes, but it is part of why there's a lack of content available for high level parties. A character's level is usually tied to their power and influence, though not necessarily if your game is more narrative heavy.
As >>90165512 suggested with the tuning in later editions, its why 5e has these big campaigns like with Storm King's Thunder and the giants storming around all over the realms and the setting having these sweeping events with worlds colliding.

>>90165419
I was looking at some older FR modules and remembered Spellbound, though it doesn't explicitly list any level requirements over 10, by the time the party is at the Runes of Chaos adventure it suggests characters be brought in of higher level than 8-10 to deal with tanar'ri, golems, etc.
They were around, just perhaps not as many as to your taste.

>>90165721
There's actually one adventure that was for up to level 100 set in FR. I forget the name but it mostly took place in the abyss.

>>90165721
>>90165731
Here we go, The Throne of Bloodstone, for 1e.

>>90165746
This one sounds fun. I think Vaasa is that region set up for legendary characters in FR too, if I remember..might be confused with another one. It got a map update for newer editions that was never published, I thought.

>>90165731
>>90165746
>>90165793
The Bloodstone lands actually were another project that got stapled into the FR last minute, similar to the Moonshae Isles.

>>90165809
Ah yes, I figured that. It felt very "And here's a space for your adventurers to plough around where it doesn't make too many ripples".
Not that I should be complaining, I do think its good to have those spaces in a setting.

>>90102622
I think this anon just answered OP's question

>>90166045
Yeah this thread was answered early in, it then turned into FR general. Not unwelcome, I suppose.

>>90165309
>One of the big appeals of FR was that there weren't supposed to be giant goddamn "The world is ending thanks to a new edition of D&D being published in six months!"
TSR / Wotc never cared about setting integrity they cared about selling you the newer improved brand. 1st edition to 2nd I quite liked the avatars both the novels and the modules and what that meant for the realms. AD&D 2nd to 3rd edition didn't really have the world ending finale type scenario although they did encourage DM's to burn their campaigns with the Apocalypse Stone module although that was a setting independent generic. 3rd to 4th was the spell plague and 100 year jump which on balance was the worst handling of them all.

>>90166301
Yeah, there was something every edition but the earlier changes just resulted in grousing comparitively. The drastic stuff in 4e made no sense since in that case just bring in a brand new setting and push the marketing on it hard.
I guess since it failed with Eberron they just tried to cannibalize something that already had a solid following.

>>90100963
He is pretty based, my drow sorceress character has his surname as a sort of meta joke

Figured this might be a good place to ask. Any FR books that cover the Shining Plains area?

>>90166700
The Vilhon Reach book for 2e goes into it

>>90166777
>The Vilhon Reach
Thanks bro

>>90165846
Another designated place for your party to overthrow the order is the Border Kingdoms, custom made for you to do whatever the fuck.

>>90166912
Is there a comfier campaign type than carving out your own little fief?

>>90167060
Nope. Kingmaker didn't do a good job of it, but it scratches an itch almost everyone associated with the hobby and genre have and that's why it gets talked about as often as it does.

>>90167207
The Pathfinder campaign book or the video game? The campaign..while I don't have a favorable opinion of Pathfinder in general, the kingdom management rules in it hit the spot too and aren't too hard to adapt to other systems. I wasn't a fan of the video game adaptation, but I did play it for this very same reason, you're right.

>>90166385
They introduced a brand new setting for 4E, it was delierbtly vague but I think most people just prefered to play in the settigns they had the big books for.

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Who are everybody's favorite FR deities? Favorite deities to make PCs for?

I really like Cyric, just because his domain of strife and treachery is cool and lets me make rational but selfish PCs or absolute schizos.

>>90167957
>The god of being a total fucking faggot
Cyric a shit. If I want my PC to worship a good deity it's usually Lethander.

>>90168204
>being a total fucking faggot
That's the fun part of being a Cyric-worshipping PC. You have to make someone who is somehow a tolerable or even compelling character.

>Lathander
He's alright, but I think deities of sun and light are kind of dull.
I prefer Helm and Ilmater when it comes to the good deities.

>>90168218
Helm isn't a good deity, he's neutral. Illmater is fine, but he pigeonholes you into a sort of 'woe and suffering' type of play.

>>90167957
Chauntea and Yondalla are favorites in FR. I also think there's a lot of potential for making interesting Sune characters.

Having said that, I have a hard time saying that I like any of the FR deities given how often they absolutely fuck up and fuck off leaving their worshippers high and dry. Likewise, there's the whole Wall of the Faithless shenanigan which is wholly off-putting.

>>90168427
Not originally part of FR, introduced only in the Time of Troubles as a concept and not by Greenwood.
Ditched in 4E, brought back in 5E and then ditched again when they re-editied the Adventurer's Guide to the Sword Coast.

>>90168495
Most people who like FR lore are around 2e or 3e though, meaning they have to put up with the Wall.

Generally unless the character is a paladin or cleric most faerunians are polytheistic and pray to whoever they think will listen.
Like that one Greenwood magical realm post where he talks about that one priestess that liked to burn candles to Bane and Ilmater on her nipples (that latter part was censored for the official clean version of the story that made it into the 4e realms lorebook).

>>90168495
Yeah, it absolutely does not sound like it came from Greenwood. Who came up with that shit?

>>90168547
The way to books describe it is that everyone is polytheistic, but everyone has a 'patron god', who is their primary deity.

>>90168427
>>90168495
>>90168534
The Wall is great.

>>90168628
I think Kelemvor's Wall is fine but I tend to prefer or vaguely mix it with the Planescape cosmology.

>>90168628
>IF you don't pray hard enough your soul will be tortured forever!
Nah it's shit. That said I've always hated how the afterlife works in D&D, where Petitioners don't have any memories (meaning there's no point in any afterlife) and their souls eventually dissolve into the deity's plane, either to be basically eaten by that god or used as raw materials to fashion Outsiders (who also don't have any memory or personality from being mortal.)

>>90168666
It was never like that, committed anti-theists get tortured forever (sort of), "the false" just get to run errands for Kelemvor because the other planes don't want them. And being "false" isn't about "Not praying hard enough", they make it very clear that half-hearted worship is still enough and that even an uncommitted person will usually choose a god at the moment of death, the false are extra-weasely people who pretend to worship a particular god for purely shallow/social reasons and maintain that false faith all the way to the end.

The wall of the faithless makes it clear that the gods are all entitled cunts who will broke no dissent, but they're not like, YHVH-tier entitled. They might lose your soul to a demon raid (woops), and individual gods might abuse or misplace it, but they won't intentionally destroy your soul unless you actively oppose the whole hierarchy.

>>90167957
I've made PCs for Lurue and Chauntea that I thought were fun, the Lurue PC was a member of the Order of the Unicorn who was basically a Quixotic (in the literal sense) frat boy who thought he was akin to a Paladin, but really wasn't. He stumbled onto a swanmay at the base of a waterfall while lost in the woods and now he simps for her as his fair lady and she mostly just sends him away on quests and hopes he doesn't make it back.
My Chauntea PC was a divine blood sorcerer who was the product of a sort of cool-aid drinking Chauntea cult trying to breed a messiah into the world, or possibly a vessel for Chauntea herself. It was unclear if she approved of them as no real clerics were involved. He was mostly just naive and sheltered, and had run away essentially due to being bored of the situation and sick of being ordered around. He's got an arranged marriage waiting back home, but never planned to return since he didn't have any real personal connections there anyway.

Most of my other PCs in the realms just "have a god", but it doesn't really factor into anything important.

>>90168427
>Yondalla
Wild how her clerics literally have a spell to turn you into a baby so you can be re-raised by halflings as a good person.

>>90168666
>>90168798
Excuse me, I mean it was never like you get damned for not praying hard enough. Becoming one with your core alignment/ideals always made sense to me but I can't remember how that applies to FR, I just remember them talking about the allocation of souls, and about how the false end up serving as tourguides for visiting devils on Kelemvor's home plane.

>>90168828
>Becoming one with your core alignment/ideals always made sense to me
Most people aren't that kind of zealot. And like I said, Petitioners don't even have memories, the person that died isn't rewarded or punished because what makes them who they were doesn't even exist in a Petitioner. They exist to mill around until a god can eat them or turn them into a slave.

>>90158709
>Trying to make a cleric in a homebrew setting is hell compared to Faerun
???

I have zero problems playing a cleric in a homebrew setting. Usually you're left to your own devices figuring out how your god interacts with your cleric, what the rituals of obeisance are, etc. What is it about /tg/? Why are there so many people who are afraid to actually role-play?

>>90168824
Yeah, there are neat bits to her and her worship if you're willing to dig into things.

>>90159354
Elminster showing up and providing a lead or asking the players to do him a solid is a fun diversion. ONCE.

There are a lot of GMs who have trouble with the concept of cameos. They can't just do it once and move along.

>>90168666
Why yes that is how it works, just like real life, as you'd well know SATAN.

>>90168852
>Most people aren't that kind of zealot.
This is true in a lot of real-world religions, the practitioners of the religion would certainly prefer to live forever in their current state, but the priests tell them that this desire is some sort of illusion.
>And like I said, Petitioners don't even have memories
Is this true in FR? I don't remember that from Faiths and Pantheons, and I do distinctly remember it working like that in Ghostwalk, but it's been a while.

>>90168874
>Halflings
>Willing to dig into things
Well, yes, typically. But yeah she's a pretty kind deity, weird in some respects.

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>>90167957
Hoar. IYKYK

>>90168896
>but the priests tell them that this desire is some sort of illusion
That's more an element of eastern religions, where heavens, if they exist, are temporary stops. In western and middle eastern religions, any afterlife tends to be a permanent affair, barring any end times where everything is destroyed (eg, Ragnarok.)
>Is this true in FR
As I remember it, yes. But I originally read most of my lore as a teen and I could be mixing up generic D&D and/or Greyhawk with FR. That said I'm fairly confident.

>>90168908
>That's more an element of eastern religions, where heavens, if they exist, are temporary stops. In western and middle eastern religions, any afterlife tends to be a permanent affair, barring any end times where everything is destroyed (eg, Ragnarok.)
Ehhhh. In Christianity "Heaven" as popularly conceived if it even exists at all is just waiting for the "World to come" where it's merged back with the physical world. Which is why they were killing improperly converted Pagans for using Cremation. Since at the time people didn't quite realize that said remaking and return to life of the dead flesh wouldn't happen till those bodies were dust anyway.

So I've seen some funposting about this, but how would racial deities of different races who want to become worshippers or clerics? Another anon mentioned Yondalla, what would Yondalla do with a human that wanted to be a cleric? How about Lolth or Eilistraee? Would they accept the petitioner as is, reject them, or accept them on condition of polymorphing or reincarnating or something?

Has Sembia gotten any new lore? Greenwood dropped anything about that since 4th edition?

>>90168936
its still about following the tenets, I don't see why they wouldn't, but generally if someone comes to them they do so for a good reason and not some shallow reason.
If they do want to become a cleric for some shallow reason probably they'd be tested in some mystical way to prove if they're worthy or not and if they aren't, because they don't understand what it means to commit to the values then the prayers don't translate into spells in the morning.

>>90168936
Most good deities are accepting at least of other mainstream races (elves, dwarves, humans, halflings, gnomes) worshiping them, it's just rare. You'll occasionally find note of a human worshiping an elf god, or a dwarf worshiping a human one, that kind of stuff.

>>90168936
I don't think Yondalla would have much problems, as halflings consider humans to just be dire-halflings anyway

>>90168964
Do we have any actual lore on where halflings come from? As far as I know they just kinda pop up living next to humans at some point in South Faerun and spread from there. That's pretty appropriate to how people perceived them in LoTR but it does leave unanswered whether they're just another branch of humanity like how they really were in LoTR or not.

>>90168936
The question may become more what does the dwarven village do when the half-orc cleric of Moradin shows up.
But I get the feeling Moradin may be one of the exceptions to the "outside races" thing given that he, despite being lawful good, tells his followers to slay all orcs.

>>90168959
speaking of that, wasn't lathander originally an elven god before humans became the bulk of his followers ?

>>90168964
>halflings consider humans to just be dire-halflings anyway
Really? I honestly don't know much about FR Halflings, so I wouldn't know either way.

>>90168992
Might be confusion with Corellon Larethian, but I forget

>>90168992
>>90169001
I don't believe so, you might mean Mielikki, though in-lore she's the actual Finnish goddess who left to Faerun when her people stopped worshiping her, and there first found worship among elves. Or Selune, Chauntea, or Mystryl who elves worshiped before humans did.

>>90169039
Oh yeah, there's also an entire Stargate plotline with egyptian gods in Mulhorand pulling earthlings into Faerun to serve them.
Was that stuff Greenwood?

>>90169049
No idea, but don't forget the Egyptian gods are still worshiped on Faerun (until Mulhorand gets nuked if you like 4e bullshit) and the Mesopotamian ones were too until their demigods went crazy and got everyone killed or fucked off. Plus the Tyr in the pantheon is the actual Norse Tyr and Odin has a temple on the Tears because he's trying to get in too.

>>90169049
>>90169067
Oh, and Sune is heavily implied to be Venus.

>>90169067
>Odin has a temple on the Tears because he's trying to get in too.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iWr3R9sPv-o

>>90169083
Can't blame a guy for trying huh?

>>90169098
Not at all.

Given that Greenwood is an absolute proto-coomer, how likely is it that futa are canon in FR?

>>90168952
I'm not saying I'd convert to Yondalla worship and become a cleric if there was a shortstack halfling tradwife on offer, I'm just saying that I'd take a hard look at what Faerun had to offer if I were ever there.

>>90169218
Futashit is from gay closeted weebs. Ed is neither a weeb nor is he closeted about the shit he likes.

>>90169218
>>90169232
Doesn't he have just full sex swapping instead?

>>90169218
No thats just present in popular video games for the lowest common denominator.
You can do whatever you want with transmutation magic though, but its not "canon" for it to happen naturally.
If that trans stuff is your fetish then Eilistraee often forces her male worshippers to undergo magical rituals to become women though, so there you go.

>>90169549
Mystra also likes doing it to her chosen.

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Did Greenwood write pages and pages of peepeepoopoo fetish erotica?

>>90169229
If you had >>90168824 happen to you it'd probably be weird if you, as a human, didn't end up worshiping Yondalla and marrying a Halfling.

>>90169555
I'm sensing a pattern here.

>>90169560
The spell in question changes you into a halfling. It's punishment used against someone who has wronged halflings. They sentence you to a do-over, turn you into the thing you hated/destroyed, and then raise you in their traditions.

It's not meant as a reward.

>>90169578
Who claimed it was a reward? All I implied was that if you got raised by Halflings you'd probably integrate into Halfling culture.

>>90168936
4E said other races put their on spin on thing bcuase the gods are not the mortal races, the gods are gods and hav few fixed forms.

>>90169860
But then again, FR gods are narrower in scope than the Points of Light/Nerath/Dawn War Pantheon despite sharing several deities.

>>90169860
But that's 4e.

>>90168204
The best part of Lathander is having a character who oils himself up and praises the sun naked every morning for all to see.
When you have that kind of BDE it's noticeable in everything you do.

>>90169860
4E would have been better if it had spun off into a similarly named, but otherwise completely distinct product. Sorta like Final Fantasy and Final Fantasy Tactics. 4E is such its own animal it makes no fucking sense to include it with the rest of D&D shit.

>>90168625
Most people don't necessarily know their patron deity though. They might favor one over the others in the way we might favor a color, but most people aren't clergy and don't know the ins and ours of what gods want.

>>90169904
I'm pretty sure you decide your Patron Deity, not the other way around.

>>90169900
4E is D&D was built from late stage 3.5 edition to be redesigned to account for late 3.5, the problem being no one went around posting their critical role style shopping fests, only the charop stuff and the whine that WotC's editing and writing sucked.

>>90169926
I assume this is English, but I'm not entirely sure that it is.

>>90168908
>>90168896
The memories thing is a grey area.
By generic/all/Planescape/maybe-others yes. That is the case
However FR specifically acknowledges that some resurrections happen LONG after a person died. For example Cormyr has a "do not open unless the apocalypse is happening" vault with DNA samples of all of their greatest knights and kings to be used with resurrection magic.
This doesn't really make sense if memories are lost shortly after death.
It also doesn't make sense in the editions that limit resurrection to a few years after death, but there you go.

>>90168936
AD&D actually listed what races every deity accepted.
Some were really fucking strict, others not so much.
But race and gender could play a factor easily.

>>90168938
If it has I don't know it. Could ask on his discord or Twitter about what's happening there and see if a video is made.
He recently revealed that he's not allowed to talk about the Sword Coast AT ALL by WotC's new rules, and I wouldn't be surprised if there are other places he's not supposed to acknowledge.

>>90168908
>>90168929
Waiting for judgment day is arguably the most lay take on heaven, Christian scholars conceived it as together-ness with God, the parts of yourself that would cause you to desire anything else (besides together-ness with God) are shed before you ever get to Heaven.

Other religions just say "The afterlife sucks so try to stay alive", there may be some potential for eternal life but it's only for the elite. And some are purely transactional, like Islam, "Do what I tell you in this life and you'll get donkeys and bitches in the next life".

You know what old religions never say? "The next life is like this one, and you never die, and there is no catch, and you'll never have to change". That's a new-age wish-fulfillment sort of thing.

A lot of D&D settings contain the idea that souls aren't truly eternal, because they're just drops of plane-stuff (or the outer planes are made of soul-stuff depending on how you put it), a discrete soul that can be resurrected is just one transitional state in a series of transitional states. Which seems sensible to me. Eternal discrete consciousness is a nightmare if you really think about it.

Petitioners losing their memories would make the setting less interesting, because it seems like the gods all have their own little kingdoms in the outer planes, where their worshipers get to be together with them. That's the idea. Even if you lose your memories, it still makes sense, like your worship as a mortal determines the face of the new person that will be born on your death.

But it's also hard to apply the concept of "reward" and "punishment" here, because evil people choose evil gods, any evil person can worship a neutral god if they really want. Worshipers of Shar, for instance, specifically want their minds to be snuffed out, they're looking forward to it.

>>90169984
Off the top of my head he is also not allowed to talk about the stare Calimshan in 5e or anything to do with the obsidian pillars.

>>90169049
Unclear.
We know FR was always supposed to be a neighboring dimension to the real world, but Greenwood doesn't like using real world cultures in Fantasy.
So presumably if he did intend for the Stargate plot, he would have wanted them more warped after they arrived in reflection of their new surroundings instead of just still being Egyptians.

>>90169218
The only compelling argument I have seen for dickgirls in the FR is based around Shar and Selune. The two sisters who loved one another until their great fight which also led to the birth of their daughter Mystryl.

Aside from that, everyone else is right. There are examples of women turning into men and men turning into women, but the desire for halfway doesn't seem to exist naturally in a place where being gay isn't a massive taboo.

>>90133746
>No wonder weebshit is taking off.
What fucking planet do you live in exactly? Where? Where is it taking off?

>>90169923
Mechanically? Yes.
In lore? Unless you're divine magic (and even in that case some are chosen against their will though we don't have examples of that), some people like to think they're living closer to one patron over another, but they don't really know.
Not like the church would necessarily tell them, they like donations.

>>90144338
>many of the Realms deities encourage "sex for fun" or even "sex for religious rapture"

Historically accurate.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sacred_prostitution
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sex_magic

>>90169947
What he means is that 4e was, as WotC thought, 3.5e designed for 3.5e players.
It turned out to be 3.5e designed for the people who are obsessed with the character optimization forums who whined their heads off about not being the big goddamn hero in literally everything, and as WotC found out, that is a small market that doesn't invite loads of others to play with them.
It's part of why, similar to 5e, sales were huge thanks to good marketing, but then 4e books started cluttering the used bookshelves more than previous editions.

>>90169273
Basically, yes. Anyone who wants to be a woman, can be a 100% accurate, genetic woman in every measurable way possible.

Why do you think WOTC is dropping FR? There's no way to put trannies in the setting, because the setting allows trannies exactly what they want, and so no one can claim victimhood. That doesn't meet the requirements of WOTCs internal political beliefs, so FR gets phased out.

>>90170019
>Not allowed to talk about Calimshan
Lel.
>Pillars
Given how much BG3 ended up using Jergal, it feels a bit like they're using that unpublished storyline that was supposed to be Jergal trying and failing to resurrect his bugman race of super bugs that manipulate magic in ways that make the Netherese and Sarrukh look like rookies.

>>90169926
>>90170094
The issue with that, is that the most fun thing about character building in 3.5e (the massive amount of character options like classes and wild multiclassing) wasn't really a thing in 4e.

>>90169953
You can lose your memories on dying and then get them back when resurrected, that's what happens in Ghostwalk (and you never remember what it was like to be dead). Also, even in a lower-magic setting, remember that the spells available to PCs aren't the only ones that exist, and also that there are other kinds of magic besides spells, so if the apocalypse did happen I'm sure Cormyr would attempt some kind of big fat plot-powered resurrection ritual. True Resurrection IIRC is 10 years per caster level which is already a long time in human terms.

>>90170120
I don't think that's literally why they're dropping FR.
Though it is somewhat amusing when the activists start using settings as a platform where canonically exists easy solutions to what they're trying to push.

>>90170063
This is wrong according to 3e lore, you absolutely do choose your patron, sometimes at the very moment of death.

>>90170167
They thought the forcing everyone to have a paragon path and more feats would do it.
Eventually they did get to that point that the charop forums were in full swing, but by that point it was already clear that marketing for big short term sales and forgetting about long term was the way forward for Hasbro.

>>90170007
>Eternal discrete consciousness is a nightmare if you really think about it.
I'm not suicidal so I disagree.

>>90170169
Fair points. I just wonder how that works if people end up as planar stuff before being res'd or if there's some mystic mumbo jumbo that prevents someone from being melded away until they pass the expiration date.

>>90170064
Note on the sacred prostitution shit: nobody has been able to find any evidence that most of the deities it's ascribed to actually had it. It's basically a forced pet theory.

>>90170240
Sex worship was pretty common, historically speaking.

>>90170249
Having deities with a sex portfolio is not the same as having temple prostitutes, anon. I'm not going to argue that they didn't worship sex as part of a deity, or didn't keep little dick charms on their necks hoping it made them more virile. We have actual evidence of that. My complaint is about how wildly anthropologists wanted to spread the idea of sacred prostitution, only to fail for the decades since it caught on as a popular theory to find any real evidence it was a widespread practice outside of a couple standout deities (like Ishtar, and even a lot of the specific practices she got accused of don't hold up.)

>>90170240
I'm no historian, but I was always under the impression that basically everything we think we know of life and religion of that era is conjecture at best given how much of it is based on writings from people who never lived there, was born ages later, or only wrote it to talk about how much they hate the other guy.
I remember when I was in school they openly told us we don't really know if any of the rituals that are talked about involving the greeks ever actually were done or not.
But I am no historian and find the argument over such details to be a bit like arguing over if Jesus' penis fell more to the left or right

Greenwood is pretty open on how half-orcs in his FR mostly get hated because people don’t really distinguish between orcs, half-orcs and goblinoids in general. But in AD&D playable half-orcs are explicitly the 10% that can pass as ugly humans and the other 90% are just orcs.
So wouldn’t it be very hard to distinguish half-orcs from the rest of humanity?

>>90170296
That's true to a degree, but the kind of problem I'm talking about is when someone develops a pet theory, conjectures it as being true, convinces all their friends and colleagues to support it, and it catches on as basically a meme. When this happens, the theory gets bandied around as fact even without any actual physical or even written evidence that it was true. They only end up dying once the original pusher is either dead or discredited, and the decades of wasted effort don't turn up the expected evidence. Sacred prostitution as a widespread practice is one of those, along with ideas like Norse magic involving gay sex, and the whole earth mother cult idea (especially and including the peaceful martiarchal earth mother cult farmers vs. the warlike patriarchal sky father hunters theories that were pushed for AGES before people finally accepted they were nonsense.)

>>90170306
In his FR, half-orcs also are only really common in the areas where orcs and humans have been coexisting for lengthy periods of time as opposed to implied rape babies like other settings did at the time.
He was one of the big opponents to the rape baby idea for half-orcs because that's not a viable way to create an entire race as far as he was concerned.
So presumably he came from the view that a lot of half-orcs don't necessarily know how much they'll be hated until they leave their relatively small locales.
That said, half-orcs who pass for human are probably also relatively common, maybe not as common as half-elves who you can't tell are elvish if you don't know the specific traits of elfdom, but most people aren't even aware that was the standard in the setting.

>>90170315
>They only end up dying once the original pusher is either dead or discredited, and the decades of wasted effort don't turn up the expected evidence.
So which stage are we at then?
I don't know who first bandied it around or how much time has been spent trying to prove/disprove it.
I do know it made visiting temples in Daggerfall more fun.

>>90170306
>>90170331
There's also a lot of places where half-orcs aren't as hated as you'd think they'd be in FR, like in Calimshan, where nobody gives a fuck if you're a half-orc, only if you're poor, a slave, or wealthy.

>>90170340
We're at the 'grudgingly accepting that sacred prostitution probably was not a common practice' stage.

>>90170348
There are some.
Calimshan, Tethyr (kinda), Moonsea, Narfell, Thesk, Thay, one city in Chessenta, Lake of Steam, Waterdeep, are the only ones that really come to mind.

>>90170315
There's plenty of evidence for prehistoric cave-worship, and you'd have a hard time convincing me that caves weren't associated with vaginas, but I've never heard of the earthmother/skyfather dichotomy, it sounds like good worldbuilding even if it isn't accurate.

>>90170402
Like I said, worshiping sex is a separate practice from temple prostitutes. You can find Japanese towns that still venerate penis idols today.
>I've never heard of the...
It was an extremely popular theory throughout most of the 20th century, especially around the 60's. It was pretty heavily pushed by second wave feminism as well, because, in their eyes, it justified their views.

>>90170402
It was a thing pushed by radical feminist circles for a while. At least that's my exposure to it, maybe the other anon is more familiar.
It essentially said female goddesses are inherently peaceful and promoting of civilization and making things better, while male gods are all about hunting and destroying and taking from others because men are inherently inferior--sorry, I mean men are unable to understand the importance of communication.

>>90170428
It had a lot of track among legitimate anthropologists as well, probably thanks to the social popularity of that movement in academic circles at the time. People tried very hard to prove it was real.

>>90170218
No one wants to end, but being trapped in the same existence forever would be a nightmare, you just haven't thought about it hard enough. I think it's more comforting to believe that you will continue to grow, and that the present version of you would never understand the thing that you eventually become (whether that's merging with Elysium or becoming a lich).

>>90170428
But that’s stuffs been out of the mainstream since the 90s.if anything it only survives from people picking up fantasy and sci-fi stories from when it was a theory among several.

>>90170457
nta, but like I said, 20th century. We're in the 21st now. Some of us just have long memories, and it was useful as an example.

New thread?

>>90170428
People choose male gods to associate with conquest and with religion-as-domination, people choose female gods to associate with more peaceful ideals, this isn't even up for debate it's true in literally-every religion. Athena was a genre subversion and she knew it.

>>90170456
Erasing your memories erases you, meaning you aren't growing, the raw material you're made of is being re-used. It's more like fungi and bacteria recycling the carbon from your rotting body. Plus you're forgetting that this process ends in total dissolution as the plane absorbs you or is used to make an Outsider.

>>90170473
Ishtar was the goddess of blood and war, anon.

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312 KB JPG

>>90167957
Eilistraee. She's coming off as the only deity that isn't a total shithead and can provide a decent backstory for a drow PC.
Other than that: Bane and Cyric.

>>90170484
Eilistraee, Mystryl, Torm, Tyr, and Ilmater are probably the only deities who never did anything wrong and are good for the world in general.
Lathander I want to include in there but people will be upset about him killing Helm's waifu.

>>90170470
Only if there's something to actually discuss.
FR threads live and die on this board based on the topics, the only people who want to talk about the FR as a contemporary product are on the subreddit.

>>90170481
>Erasing your memories erases you
No, not really.
>total dissolution
The outer planes are made of ideals, being subsumed by your plane means becoming one with those ideals and with all the other souls that have also become one with those ideals.
>>90170220
I think that your soul being absorbed by the plane is supposed to happen on the scale of deep-time. For instance, demons based on mortal souls (tanar'ri) are a relatively new development in the abyss, all the older demons are based on older soulstuff. Demogorgon is described (sometimes) as the first human soul to fall into the abyss. Cormyr is 1,500 years old, so the old heroes would be way too old to hit with true resurrection, but that doesn't mean they're gone.

>>90170528
>No, not really.
I fundamentally disagree. You are emergent from your memories and the physical structure of your brain, without one you cease to be the same person.
>Becoming one with those ideals
Being erased as a person.

>>90170543
People can hit their heads and lose their memories but still retain their whole personality. "Growing up" can be described as "being erased as a child", there's no static version of you that lasts forever, and if there were it would be a nightmare.

>>90170498
>Mystryl
Shame she died and got replaced with Mystra, who is retarded.
>Lathander... him killing Helm's waifu
All's fair, Lathander also lost his waifu when she got infected and split into two goddesses he doesn't like. That said I really do wonder what the Dawn Cataclysm entailed, what was Lathander trying to change? He's NG so presumably it was positive, at least in intentions, but we don't know.

>>90170555
>People can hit their heads and lose their memories but still retain their whole personality
There has never been a case with complete retrograde amnesia where the person was the same afterward.
>Can be described as...
Except you changing as you grow is a slow, continuous process. There is no harsh interruption like losing your memories, everything is built on the foundation of the before.

>>90170563
The Dawn Cataclysm is one of those things that I would also want to know more about, but also think any lore added to it would be stupid.
Also the fact that Amaunator and Lathander both existed during it kind of ruins the 4e twist of THEY WERE ALWAYS THE SAME PERSON!!!!

>>90170610
>Amaunator
Especially in modern times, 5e shits on everything it touches lore wise.
>4e twist
Well all 4e realms lore was retarded too, so it's in character.

So, I assume BG3 is a horrible way to learn about FR lore?

>>90170563
>>90170610
I know that Ed said in one of the Patrrion videos that Helm's Waifu was drowned in a river by Shar which personally makes me imagine a previous Time of Troubles scenario.

>>90170618
The BG games introduce you to a lot of terminology, but they alter details as they see fit.
So for deep lore, yeah they're all shit.
For a loose idea of what's what, they can work, just don't be surprised if some organization operates entirely differently.

>>90170657
I'm not the only one who pops a boner at the idea of Shar choking them, right?

>>90170695
Man you Sharites are fucking weirdos.