D&D Brand Manager of Fluff

[Shawn Kehoe]

You hired me? Aw man, things must be worse than I thought.

Fluff ...

I've got a soft spot for the monster guide books, so let's do two of them.

Fiendish Codex III: In Gehenna we say Daemon Yugoloth! - It would be nice to complete the evil outsider theme that the first two FC volumes started. Also, since the yugoloths, demodands etc were not added to the SRD as open content, Wizards is the only source that can provide this material without significant rewrites, ala Green Ronin's Book of Fiends.

Giant Book - my head tells me that giants are iconic D&D monsters and the book would benefit from that financially. My heart says that Fey are more interesting with a wider array of creature types, mythologies and NPC potential. But the eventual goal is to see both in print, so let's say Giant Book this year. Save the esoteric stuff for when we are ready to end the line, yeah?

Heroes of Intrigue / Mystery Mysteries become really hard to run in D&D once the party gets decent divination magic. This book explores how to maintain the pacing of a mystery story, both by preventing early reveals and getting the game on-track if the PCs miss vital clues. Let that Nard fella worry about the Prestige Classes and feats.

Magic and You: Explores the logical ramifications of magic on the various aspects of society: trade, serfs, nobility, etc. If the local noble has pre-paid for a resurrection spell, what is the alternative to assassination? What kinds of laws governing would be commonly adopted in hamlets, cities etc? Since each campaign is different, this book would be general in nature, offering guidelines and suggestions.

Historical Sourcebook: Yeah, d20 Past was released a few years back for d20 Modern. I think a D&D sourcebook would target a different (and larger) audience. We could either do a series (like the old 2nd Edition books) or just do the whole damn thing in one volume. Having been burned on a few series that never made it to the third volume, I prefer the big book option. Make it a 220-256 page hardback, covering about 5 time periods in detail, allowing for "realistic" and "mythological" versions of each. Let's say Egypt in the time of the Pharoahs, Rome near its fall, Arthurian England, and two others. Each chapter would include a recommended reading list, so that readers who want more detail have a place to go. Speaking of time...

D&D Time Travel: This sounds like a crunchy book at first, but the REAL problems with time travel can't be resolved with skill checks - they are issues on how to resolve time paradoxes, how to define the power of time travel, what can and cannot be changed, etc. The author would present several different sets of "ground rules" for time travel, many of which would likely be inspired by pop culture - "The City on the Edge of Forever" model, the Marvel Universe model, etc. Most importantly, it's gotta be easy to understand - AD&D Chronomancer confused the hell out of me! Time travel has been a part of D&D for a long time (Dragonlance Legends!) and it should be addressed in a rules supplement.

Six down ... but it's 3AM, so unless you're paying overtime, I'll get the other two to you tomorrow.

Still think you were crazy to hire me...
Shawn

 

[Frostmarrow]

Threshold: The Adventure Begins.
This is a D&D supplement providing a solid framework for a 1-6th level D&D campaign. Interesting NPC's fleshed out to 7-sentence level. dungeon locations, encounter tables, wilderness environments. A geographically enclosed area,like the Two Rivers in Wheel of Time. It's an idea mine, but there is a thematic link.

Thunder Rift? I really liked that one.

OP:

About fluff in general I feel that I like myths ripped off from the real world more than completely new and made up myths. Heh. Frankly I like GWs fluff a whole lot more than Wizards because they scoop up more from the common cauldron of stories. Wizards is a lot more intuitive and subject to author whim. Wow, I'm encouraging you to steal more!

Of course it wouldn't jive with FR or Eberron but it could work in a generic fantasy world. I like to see a thinly veiled Hiawatha take on Porthos, or what have you.

 

[pawsplay]

Allegiances - The book of alignments. Describes alignments with concrete examples, flexible interpretations, discussion of the Paladin code, alternate rules along the lines of BoED/BoVD, non-alignment D&D, and some meat on creatures of the Outer Planes with less emphasis on the "Blood War" and such.

The Complete Greyhawk - Slimmed down version created from the LG stuff as well as original source, cleaving closely to the boxed set version of the setting. Deluxe treatment of Greyhawk itself. Lovely art for all racial variants and human ethnicities.

The Fantasy Village - A look at ordinary communities, primarily human, but also touching on the other major races. A discussion of D&D economics. Discussion of priests (experts? clerics? adepts? variant classes?), religion, and sects in relation to communities. NPCs and encounters set in the village, such as conspiracies, lycanthropes, and hauntings. Several example villages, with pull out battle maps.

Orders of Magic - treatment of magical organizations such as the Towers of High Sorcery, Mages of the Order, etc., including cults of Vecna, Wee Jas, and Boccob. Sample wizard towers and archmages.

Complete Noble - Fiefdoms, rulership, taxes, and aristoractic heroism.

Arms and Armor- brutally historical look at the weapons and armor of the 5th through 15th centuries. Discussion of pseudo-eras, using style to differentiate culture, and forging and special materials. Discussion of fantasy arms and armor traditions, such as the elves and dwarves.

Ancient Eras - campaigns of ancient times, when gods strode the world and artifacts were newly forged.

Sigil - reinvisioned, minus retcons but incorporating beneficial changes to the setting.

 

[Kae'Yoss]

Courts of the Fairies: The book of Fey. Info about the Seelie and Unseelie Courts, Fey in general, write-ups about the most important types (Satyr, Nymph, Dryad, maybe something else) Might also include a bit about animals and plants.

They're Definitely Giants (working title, of course): The book of Giants. Giant society, how they manage to feed themselves, how and where they live, what makes them tick, the whole nine yards.

The Heartlands: Forgotten Realms regional sourcebook, guess what region it covers.

Lords of Light (working title): FR book about non-evil organisations, just like Lords of Darkness was about the bad guys.

Faiths of Faerûn: Big book. A couple of pages of information (history, relationships, names given to priests of various ranks, special observances, holy days, dogma, goals, heresies etc.) about every single deity found in the Forgotten Realms Campaign Setting, and the same again for Monastic and Paladin Orders.


Plus three Eberron books. I'll have to familiarise myself with Eberron first, which I'll do as soon as those books you send your new Brand Manager arrive here .

 

[Alzrius]

Expedition to the Barrier Peaks - This is another Expedition title. While it's a huge adventure, and has a lot of new crunch (mostly sci-fi flavored crunch) it also has a fair amount of fluff on introducing science into your fantasy world. It discusses why you'd want to have scifi in a fantasy game, how to introduce it, the impact it'd have (on PCs, the world, the gods, etc.), and how to remove it later if you wanted to.

Forgotten Realms: Beyond Faerun Gazetteer - "Join Volothamp Geddarm as he shows you the wonders of Abeir-Toril that lie beyond the borders of Faerun! Explore the Enlightened Society of Zakhara, the ancient and majestic kingdoms of Kara-Tur, the savage lands of Maztica, and more!" This book would be overflowing with quite a lot of fluff about the lands of Toril that have been ignored since 3E. Of course, it'd have a LOT of new crunch also, since new lands all but demand new feats, spells, PrCs, and monsters, but at least half of the book (dead minimum) would be devoted to fluff about the "new" places.

Fiendish Codex III: Legions of Hades - The book that'd give daemons (that is, yugoloths) a fair shake in 3E. While it'd obviously have a lot of crunch (giving the yugoloths stats that'd make them roughly equal to demons and devils), it'd also cover their history, culture, and planar holdings as well. Go over the "real history" of the Lower Planes, where the daemons are the progenitors of the demons and the devils. Cover their dreaded towers across the Gray Waste, Gehenna, and Carceri. Give updates and definitions to the machinations of the yugoloth lords. This is the book that'd add a whole new dimension to evil.

Eberron: The Dragon Below - "At long last, Khyber, the Dragon Below, is charted! Explore the underground cities where the monsters from Xoriat reside, or search for fabled pockets of Khyber dragonshards with only untrustworthy humanoids for a guide. Just be careful to avoid the sleeping Lords of Dust, whose power, though bound, is still beyond mortal comprehension." This is the book that'd serve as a guide to the realms below Eberron, opening up a new world of adventure.

Complete Epic - The companion to the Epic Level Handbook, this goes over everything that book ignores, with long chapters covering how epic characters interact with a sub-epic world, how to build and run an epic campaign, logically placing epic NPCs in your setting (along with rationale for how they've always been there, but don't upstage your PCs), and a long chapter devoted to a city that's perfect for epic-level PCs: Sigil.

The Last Battle - After untold millenia, the ancient prison holding the dark god Tharizdun is beginning to fail, releasing his malevolent power over the World of Greyhawk. When the PCs barely manage to save the Free City from a hoard of vicious monstrosities, they must journey to the Forgotten Temple of Tharizdun to learn the truth about what's happening - a truth that will send them on a world-spanning quest to restore the Dark God's bindings before he breaks free, culminating in a battle with Tharizdun himself (an aspect of his that's the first part of him breaking out). This'd have a lot of information about the lands of Greyhawk as the PCs journey for the things to restore the prison, as well as mythological backgrounds for the gods and the history of the world.

The Fey Folio - The next iconic monster book would greatly revise and expand the presence of the fey in D&D. Not just devoted to covering new fey monsters (for all CRs), this would cover their immortality, why they interact with mortals, their relationships with the gods and monsters that they share the multiverse with, give expanded coverage to the Plane of Faerie, and much more.

Forgotten Realms: Stones of Blood - This adventure/sourcebook covers the Bloodstone Lands in the wake of the next great cataclysm to shake the realms: the Abyss invades the Bloodstone Lands! When the Witch-King Zhengyi was defeated, his phylactery was never destroyed. Now, seers predict the Witch-Kings return, and demons have begun to repopulate the land of Vaasa, testing the wards that surround the kingdom of Damara. The PCs are in a race against time to find and destroy Zhengyi's phylactery, before Orcus himself can personally come to turn the Bloodstone Lands into a piece of the Abyss right on Toril.

 

[Olaf the Stout]

I don't know if I could do 8 but I can think of 2 that would definitely make the list.

1. Book of Giants

Dragons, Undead, Aberrations, Demons, Devils and Drow have all been done. I think Giants are the next most likely (and will definitely sell).

2. Book of Religions

This will be what Dieties and Demigods should have been. Instead of stats for the various gods it will go into detail about how their beliefs and rituals. It will talk about how the various god, good and evil, are different from each other (even those with the same alignment). For an added bit of crunch it would introduce an option system where all Clerics don't get access to all Cleric spells. Spells are instead divided into different domains (the same as Wizard spells are divided into different schools) with access to the different domains varying, depending on what god the Cleric follows.

Olaf the Stout

 

[Shemeska]

Fiendish Codex III - The multiverse would be a kinder place if the 'loths were just greedy, selfish mercenaries, but the truth is much, much worse... Fleshing out the hierarchy of the yugoloths of the Gray Waste, Gehenna, and Carceri, and their primordial creators, the first fiends, the baernaloths. Also covering the Demodands/Gehreleths because they share a linked origin with the yugoloths since they're the spawn of the exiled baern, Apomps the Triple Aspected. The book could delve into the trio of 'loth towers: Khin-Oin, the Tower Arcane, and the Tower of Incarnate Pain, and the rulers of those respective bastions of yugoloth supremacy within their parent planes. We still need a 3e history for the remaining altraloths and the other yugoloth lords, plus the book could cover Night Hags and Hordelings as the younger, petitioner-derived NE fiends. Aka the 'loth'onomicon, aka I will sell my players kidneys to have a hand in this.

Sigil the City of Doors - It had an entire setting line devoted to it in 2e, so a single book on one of D&D's iconic cities won't suffer for lack of material. Covering the city's history of guilds, factions, dead gods, Blood War invasions, and the fog of time that tends to obliterate the city's mysteries. The current power structure needs to be detailed in the vacuum of the factions, and the wider role upon the planes that those factions now might play is a major pot of plothooks to say the least. Any bound space is a portal, if only you have the key. Pure undiluted awesome.

Demiplanes - the froth upon the sea of potential, demiplanes exist like bubbles floating atop the ethereal deep. From the mundane lair of a powerful wizard, to cities ripped from their worlds and entombed in perpetual cursed darkness by angry demon lords...

Fey - so much untapped potential here, from the courts of the Sidhe in the wandering demiplane of Faerie, to the potential influence and traffic with the Eladrin or the Elves. Just what are Fey representing? Are they mortality writ large? Are they spirits of the prime material? What do they represent, what is their history, and what is their modern relevance?

Giants - covering giants and giant'kin, various creation myths, touching upon the titans perhaps. Lots of ground to cover.

FR Regional Sourcebook - The Dragon Coast : We've never had this really covered in detail, and we haven't had a true FR regional sourcebook for years despite people all but begging for it. Adventures are great, and they've been really well done, but we still want regional sourcebooks.

FR Regional Sourcebook - Western Heartlands : same rational as above.

FR Regional Sourcebook - The Cold Lands : Vaasa, Damara and the former Nar and Raumathari empires.

 

[Asmor]

I'd like to see some more products focusing on cosmology, planar travel and exotic planar locales. In particular, the Great Wheel cosmology is of particular interest to me.

I'd like to see a Sigil setting book, maybe something along the lines of Ghostwalk.

Actually, ya know what, just bring back Planescape.

Seriously, though, I'd love to see a series of one-shot mini-settings, ideally which could be easily dropped into an existing world if so desired.

1) Planehoppers: Deals briefly with adventuring in the outer planes. Includes descriptions of at least one major metropolis on each plane, including details of travel, power players and groups of the city, and adventure seeds. Also includes "The Sultan of Flame and the Dragon God's Relic," a plane-spanning adventure for characters of 10th-15th level.

2) Sail & Sword: A pirate-based campaign setting centered around a large, but sparse, archipelago consisting of hundreds of small islands. Includes several example pirate ships, including The Red Corsair, a galleon crewed by Tanar'ri and captained by the succubus known as Black Jane; The Ivory Menace, a boat made of bones, which the insane necromancer Falastar "The Gravelord" Malgrave uses to finance and supply his twisted experiements; and many more! Also includes a collection of colorful and exotic ports of call.

3) Emancipation: For three millenia, your people have toiled under the absolute control of your demonic overlords. Finally, the planes are shifting, and the fiends' grasp on your world is weakening. Now is the time to strike, now is the time to throw off the chains of oppression, now is the time to reclaim your freedom! Includes a timeline of momentous events which the PCs can directly influence, with details on the goals they must achieve, what they stand to gain with success, and what will happen if they fail. For example: "The Gate of Souls." The first blows have been struck, and the demon-lords move to quell the uprising quickly, summoning powerful reinforcements through the Gate of Souls. If the gate can be sealed off quickly, the demon-lords will be dealt a serious blow and their hold on the southern plains will be weakened; fail and provide them with a stronghold with which to stage their retaliation!

Sorry, that's about it for me.

 

[jdrakeh]

I'd revive the Poor Wizards Almanac series, the most useful 'fluff' books in the history of TSR. Specifically, I'd look at having the line examine different official settings, from Eberron to the Forgotten Realms (and beyond). I'd price each volume at $19.95 and publish them in the 'pocket guide' format pioneered by Mongoose Publishing. I'd publish "Eberron: Overview" and "Forgotten Realms: Overview" this year, following up the former with a regional/city Almanac for Sharn.

I'd reimage 'epic' to reflect actual literature (e.g., The Odyssey) as opposed to simply ratcheting up the die roll bonuses. In the new Epic Handbook I'd examine roleplay that spans generations of heroes, is firmly rooted in 'wondrous' (perhaps with new PC abilities such as Immunity to Poison), and allows a player to define their character's own fate or destiny -- along with simple mechanics that let them bring it about in actual play (I actually have some such mechanics on the drawing board). The fluff would come largely in the form of literary comparsion and a new, fully redesigned, Union: City of Adventure!

I'd introduce 'field guides' to monsters in the style pioneered by John Audubon, written from the point of a naturalist and hunter, as opposed to a game designer. These 'field guides' would contain anatomical sketches, pictures of typical habitat, etc. They would not include game stats. Each volume would cover a specific type of creature (e.g., Aberration, Humanoid, etc), with examples of the most fascinating subjects of that type. This year, I'd push for Aberrations, Outsiders, and Undead.

I would work with the author of an ENWorld Story Hour to create a free weekly (or bi-weekly) PDF download for the DI that chronicles an ongoing D&D campaign from the viewpoint of the characters (much like the Voyage of the Princess Ark). Such a thing could serve as a great way to bring non-gamers into the hobby by showing them how the game is experienced, rather than lining up yet another weak "Example of Play" script that reads like poor stage direction.

Those are my eight products.

 

[Gold Roger]

The Steampunk Companion: Somewhat like the enviromental books, this is a full guide to incorporating steampunk in various levels and variations into D&D.


The Low Magic Companion: A full on guide on incorperating a more low magic feel into D&D and simplyfly gameplay with as few rulechanges as possible. Appart from few (very few) proposed rulechanges and a few simpler and more low magic alternate class features there should be no rules whatsoever.


The Book of Elements: Full on guide on the elemental planes, elementals, elemental subtyped creatures and elemental magic. This is something of a neglected child of D&D.

There's lots of elemental creatures that deserve some attention and elemental magic deserves to be more than air wizards use lightning spells, watermages cold etc. Also, Imix, Ogremosh, Yan-C-Bin and Olhydra deserve as prominent a place as Demorgorgon, Orcus or the Archdevils of Hell.

Thing is, elemental adventures are harder to come up with than, say, those that revolve around demons. Which is why we need a guide that helps build and inspires such adventures even more.

Those are the three I can come up with immediatly.