D&D Beyond: Raven Queen

[doctorbadwolf]

Yeah, I was not a fan of the Halfling video at all, and the dwarf one was fine, but pretty boring. Gith one was actually pretty good, but the Mind Flayer one... really left me scratching my head. “Not to go into detail about Spelljammer, but... [proceeds to go into detail about spelljammer].” That one really felt like they didn’t know what to do with it, but felt like they had to briefly touch on Illithids to contextualize the Gith video.

I get the impression that most of this book isn’t really going to be for me. Hopefully there are a few kernels I can steal, but I’ll probably mostly get this book for the monster stat blocks and maybe some of the races.

On the subject of reinventing things just because they can... I try not to be too critical of such things, as it’s one of the common criticisms of a lot of what I love about 4e. If they’ve got cool new ideas, may as well throw them out there. Worst case scenario, I don’t like them and I stick with the old version. Best case, they actually stumble upon something awesome and I find a way to incorporate it into my own take on NV.

I found the dwarf video distasteful because IMO it makes Dwarves unambiguously on the wrong side of the initial moment of conflict with the Duergar (when they tried to rejoin dwarf society), which does give me ideas for Duergar characters, but...yeah I don’t live Dwarves as insane fanatical victim blamers.

The halfling one I just kinda found myself not caring as much about these halflings. Which is fine, since I’ve always liked gnomes more.

But yeah, I can just ignore it and keep using 4e halflings, RQ, and shader-kai, along with the 4e cosmology, Gnolls, and Tiamat and Bahamut.

 

[Charlaquin]

I still dont get the whole Shadar Kai are elves thing. Now, if I heard right the Raven Queen is an elf. It is like they are like Oprah: "elves, elves for everybody".

Shadar-Kai were Fey in their original 3.5 incarnation, so it makes some sense to make them elves again.

In 4e, where the Raven Queen was introduced, she was originally a mortal woman who died, and for some unspecified reason, Nerull took an interest in her soul and made her his bride. She learned his mastery over death-related magic during this time and eventually betrayed him and took over his position as God of Death, though she was committed to insuring souls went where they were supposed to go after death, rather than exploiting them as Nerull did. In this setting, the Shadar-Kai were originally a small tribe of humans who were somehow deceived by Nerull and trapped in the Shadowfell. Their descendants were warped by the Shadowfell and became the race as it's known in the setting's present. Their devotion to the Raven Queen in this setting was due at least in part to their debt to her for killing Nerull, thereby freeing them from his grasp. Additionally, though it was never explicitly stated, there were bits of lore that hinted at the possibility that the Raven Queen may have belonged to the tribe that was originally deceived by Nerull in life.

Since the Raven Queen is extremely popular, it makes sense that they would want to bring her into 5th edition. But, since the Raven Queen was so tightly integrated with the Nentir Vale setting, trying to transport her into the "Ok-it's-pretty-much-Planescape-but-we're-not-going-to-call-it-that everysetting where the various D&D multiverses exist within the same overarching omniverse poses a lot of problems, particularly because they seem to be trying to make the various sub-settings different Prime Material planes within the same Great Wheel. If Greyhawk's shadowfell, Nentir Vale's shadowfell, and Forgotten Realms' shadowfell are all the same place, how do you reconcile the fact that Nerull exists in Greyhawk and is alive, exists in Nentir Vale and is dead, and doesn't exist in Forgotten Realms with the fact that the Raven Queen exists in all of them?

One of these problems that has to be dealt with is the racial status of the Shadar-Kai. They're Fey in Greyhawk, and humans in Nentir Vale. But do they need to be Fey in Nentir Vale? How important is their being humans to their backstory and to the Raven Queen's? I'd say deciding that they're elves, and the Raven Queen is still possibly maybe one of them, therefore the Raven Queen might have been an elf in life is a pretty reasonable way to resolve that conflict.

Now, don't get me wrong. I think a better way to resolve the conflict would be to not do this cockamamie omniverse thing in the first place, but that ship has long since sailed.

 

[gyor]

FRs Shadowfell, Nentir Vale's Shadowfell, and Greyhawks Shadowfell are interconnected I think, like all those worlds are part of the same material plane, but these Shadowfells would be seperated by the Shadowfell equivilant of the Phlegion or whatever that weird Spelljammer space is called.

I did have the idea of how they could introduce the Raven Queen to FR, she could take a dead God like Nergal's (dead Untheric Deity of Death) divine spark and take his persona among the Untherites and call herself the Raven Queen among Shadar Kai.

 

[gyor]

Shadar-Kai were Fey in their original 3.5 incarnation, so it makes some sense to make them elves again.

In 4e, where the Raven Queen was introduced, she was originally a mortal woman who died, and for some unspecified reason, Nerull took an interest in her soul and made her his bride. She learned his mastery over death-related magic during this time and eventually betrayed him and took over his position as God of Death, though she was committed to insuring souls went where they were supposed to go after death, rather than exploiting them as Nerull did. In this setting, the Shadar-Kai were originally a small tribe of humans who were somehow deceived by Nerull and trapped in the Shadowfell. Their descendants were warped by the Shadowfell and became the race as it's known in the setting's present. Their devotion to the Raven Queen in this setting was due at least in part to their debt to her for killing Nerull, thereby freeing them from his grasp. Additionally, though it was never explicitly stated, there were bits of lore that hinted at the possibility that the Raven Queen may have belonged to the tribe that was originally deceived by Nerull in life.

Since the Raven Queen is extremely popular, it makes sense that they would want to bring her into 5th edition. But, since the Raven Queen was so tightly integrated with the Nentir Vale setting, trying to transport her into the "Ok-it's-pretty-much-Planescape-but-we're-not-going-to-call-it-that everysetting where the various D&D multiverses exist within the same overarching omniverse poses a lot of problems, particularly because they seem to be trying to make the various sub-settings different Prime Material planes within the same Great Wheel. If Greyhawk's shadowfell, Nentir Vale's shadowfell, and Forgotten Realms' shadowfell are all the same place, how do you reconcile the fact that Nerull exists in Greyhawk and is alive, exists in Nentir Vale and is dead, and doesn't exist in Forgotten Realms with the fact that the Raven Queen exists in all of them?

One of these problems that has to be dealt with is the racial status of the Shadar-Kai. They're Fey in Greyhawk, and humans in Nentir Vale. But do they need to be Fey in Nentir Vale? How important is their being humans to their backstory and to the Raven Queen's? I'd say deciding that they're elves, and the Raven Queen is still possibly maybe one of them, therefore the Raven Queen might have been an elf in life is a pretty reasonable way to resolve that conflict.

Now, don't get me wrong. I think a better way to resolve the conflict would be to not do this cockamamie omniverse thing in the first place, but that ship has long since sailed.

I had an idea that the Shadar Kai could spread to worlds that they don't occur naturally in by infecting humans in the shadowfell with their essence of dead Shadar Kai turning humans and possibly other races into Shadar Kai, their by spreading to new worlds where they aren't naturally found.

These populations wouldn't even know they are related to Elves at first, but in enough generations the Elven nature finally kicks in.

And once that happens they open the door to an Avatar/s of the Raven Queen to show up in that would.

 

[MechaTarrasque]

Mike Mearls described the Feywild as a transitional plane between the Prime Material Plane and the Positive Energy Plane (https://www.sageadvice.eu/2017/09/01/shadowfell-and-feywild-explained/), so if each campaign world is in its own Prime Material Plane, then every campaign world has its own Shadowfell and Feywild.* All the campaign worlds seem to be in the same multiverse**, but I don't know if there is anything that says they are all in the same universe (and the whole bit about spheres would suggest that they are in different universes in the same multiverse).

* I like [MENTION=6670153]gyor[/MENTION]'s idea that they are interconnected, but even if everything is in the same universe, there is no indication that it is easy (or possible) to get from one campaign world's part of the shadowfell to another's.

**The idea that there is more than one version of someone is so closely connotated to multiverse that it might as well be part of the definition. There is no reason to believe that there is one and only version of anything (especially anything that was once mortal) running around the D&D multiverse. There may be a tendency for each universe to have a Raven Queen, but the FR one may be no more the PoL one than goateed evil mirror universe Spock is the regular Mr. Spock.

 

[gyor]

Mike Mearls described the Feywild as a transitional plane between the Prime Material Plane and the Positive Energy Plane (https://www.sageadvice.eu/2017/09/01/shadowfell-and-feywild-explained/), so if each campaign world is in its own Prime Material Plane, then every campaign world has its own Shadowfell and Feywild.* All the campaign worlds seem to be in the same multiverse**, but I don't know if there is anything that says they are all in the same universe (and the whole bit about spheres would suggest that they are in different universes in the same multiverse).

* I like [MENTION=6670153]gyor[/MENTION]'s idea that they are interconnected, but even if everything is in the same universe, there is no indication that it is easy (or possible) to get from one campaign world's part of the shadowfell to another's.

**The idea that there is more than one version of someone is so closely connotated to multiverse that it might as well be part of the definition. There is no reason to believe that there is one and only version of anything (especially anything that was once mortal) running around the D&D multiverse. There may be a tendency for each universe to have a Raven Queen, but the FR one may be no more the PoL one than goateed evil mirror universe Spock is the regular Mr. Spock.

You'd need a powerful Spell, portal, or a Spelljammer ship to get from world to world.

Here is how the Material Plane works in D&D, imagine a plane fill with this bright substance and suspended in this substance a massive solar system crystal sphere, kind of like Dyson Spheres.

And inside each of these sphere is out space, planets a sun or suns, moons, people and so in.

The stars people see at night are usually holes in the Crystal Sphere.

 

[MechaTarrasque]

You'd need a powerful Spell, portal, or a Spelljammer ship to get from world to world.

Here is how the Material Plane works in D&D, imagine a plane fill with this bright substance and suspended in this substance a massive solar system crystal sphere, kind of like Dyson Spheres.

And inside each of these sphere is out space, planets a sun or suns, moons, people and so in.

The stars people see at night are usually holes in the Crystal Sphere.

That leave us with is that each sphere may have its own intersection with the positive and negative planes, thus each sphere has its own Feywild and Shadowfell. The "Raven Queen" might be a cosmic thought virus spreading from one 'Fell to the next, which explains why there wasn't a RQ in the FR before and now there is one.* Likewise in some worlds the person who manifests the RQ thought virus becomes a goddess and in others just remains a nondeity power.

* Hmmm, this idea totally justifies all the Greyhawk stuff in FR; lots of cosmic thought viruses out there......

 

[gyor]

That leave us with is that each sphere may have its own intersection with the positive and negative planes, thus each sphere has its own Feywild and Shadowfell. The "Raven Queen" might be a cosmic thought virus spreading from one 'Fell to the next, which explains why there wasn't a RQ in the FR before and now there is one.* Likewise in some worlds the person who manifests the RQ thought virus becomes a goddess and in others just remains a nondeity power.

* Hmmm, this idea totally justifies all the Greyhawk stuff in FR; lots of cosmic thought viruses out there......

The Mike Mearls quote on Feywild/Positive Energy Plane connection and Shadowfell/Negative Energy Plane Connection was in the context of a suggestion on how to transition a 2e cosmology to a 5e cosmology, it wasn't official setting material.

In 5e cosmology the Feywild and Shadowfell are mirror planes, they are a twisted mirrors of the Material Plane, they aren't transitive planes.

And the Energy Planes unlike the original great wheel which had them with the Elemental Planes, has them in 5e out BEYOND the outer planes, the idea is that the outer planes draw substance from these planes as does every plane below them.

This does level some oddness that has not been explored, like because the Feywild and Shadowfell are mirror planes bounded by their actual transitive plane the Ethereal Plane just like the Material Plane, that the parts of the elemental planes nearest to the Feywild and Shadowfell should form a border region resembling them, just as the parts of the Elemental Planes nearest to the Material Plane form a border region shaped by the part of the Material Plane it's near.

Then Feywild/Border Elemental region and Shadowfell /Border Region could be a good place in my opinion to place the quasi elemental planes like the Quasielemental Plane of Void.

That being said the dark space between the Shadowfell reflection of each crystal sphere (Shadowsphere???) could be traversible via undead, magical viruses, what ever. In previous editions the Plane of Shadows connected to various worlds via the deep shadow so perhaps that is what the Shadowfell has between Shadowspheres.

Also note that Greyhawk, Kyrnn, and Toril are close together in the Material Plane and current in the space between their crystal spires connections the three crystal spheres.

 

[MechaTarrasque]

The Mike Mearls quote on Feywild/Positive Energy Plane connection and Shadowfell/Negative Energy Plane Connection was in the context of a suggestion on how to transition a 2e cosmology to a 5e cosmology, it wasn't official setting material.

In 5e cosmology the Feywild and Shadowfell are mirror planes, they are a twisted mirrors of the Material Plane, they aren't transitive planes.

And the Energy Planes unlike the original great wheel which had them with the Elemental Planes, has them in 5e out BEYOND the outer planes, the idea is that the outer planes draw substance from these planes as does every plane below them.

This does level some oddness that has not been explored, like because the Feywild and Shadowfell are mirror planes bounded by their actual transitive plane the Ethereal Plane just like the Material Plane, that the parts of the elemental planes nearest to the Feywild and Shadowfell should form a border region resembling them, just as the parts of the Elemental Planes nearest to the Material Plane form a border region shaped by the part of the Material Plane it's near.

Then Feywild/Border Elemental region and Shadowfell /Border Region could be a good place in my opinion to place the quasi elemental planes like the Quasielemental Plane of Void.

That being said the dark space between the Shadowfell reflection of each crystal sphere (Shadowsphere???) could be traversible via undead, magical viruses, what ever. In previous editions the Plane of Shadows connected to various worlds via the deep shadow so perhaps that is what the Shadowfell has between Shadowspheres.

Also note that Greyhawk, Kyrnn, and Toril are close together in the Material Plane and current in the space between their crystal spires connections the three crystal spheres.

If the 'Wild and 'Fell are supposed to represent emotional extremes, then I could see an area of ash or embers (fire), ice (water), dust (earth) around the Shadowfell (not sure about emotionally dead air, doldrums?) and storm (air), steam (water), and lava (earth) around the Feywild (it seems like fire is already emotionally volatile)

 

[gyor]

If the 'Wild and 'Fell are supposed to represent emotional extremes, then I could see an area of ash or embers (fire), ice (water), dust (earth) around the Shadowfell (not sure about emotionally dead air, doldrums?) and storm (air), steam (water), and lava (earth) around the Feywild (it seems like fire is already emotionally volatile)

Ice is the Paraelemental Plane between Air and Water.

"The Para-Elemental Planes are produced where the Elemental Planes come into contact with each other: Smoke (Air and Fire), Ice (Air and Water), Ooze (Earth and Water), and Magma (Fire and Earth). The Quasi-Elemental Planes are produced where the Elemental Planes touch the Energy Planes: At the intersection of the Positive Energy Plane and the planes of Air, Earth, Fire, and Water are Lightning, Minerals, Radiance, and Steam respectively. Around the Negative Energy Planes are Vacuum, Dust,[1]Ash,[2] and Salt.[3]"

Just substitute the Shadowfell for the Negative Energy Plane and the Feywild for the Positive Engery Plane since the energy planes are not inner planes anymore.