Nentir Vale Coming to Dungeons and Dragons

[Charlaquin]

But then there was 4e. It heralded TONS of lore changes to many of the basic assumptions in D&D lore from monsters to races, etc. That's a big part of why I avoided it.

Not really though. It created a separate setting with different lore, it didn’t change the lore of existing settings. It advanced the metaplot of the Forgotten Realms, and I don’t blame FR fans for not really liking the direction they took it in.

Also, isn’t it kind of a double-standard to have gotten upset about the changes 4e made, but not allow 4e fans to be upset about the changes 5e is making?

Ok, it seems like in order to only include examples you want to acknowledge you are narrowly defining change in lore to mean retcon. So her'e s a question, was Asmodeus becoming a god a change in lore? Because before 4e, in every other edition... he was a devil, not a god.

Asmodeus is still a devil in the Forgotten Realms. It is only the Nentir Vale setting that has a god named Asmodeus, so no, it was not a retcon.

Personally, even though I didn’t like the 5e Forgotten Realms take on the Raven Queen, I wasn’t bothered by it because I don’t really like FR in general, and it wasn’t changing Nentir Vale. That might not be the case anymore.

 

[Parmandur]

Not really though. It created a separate setting with different lore, it didn’t change the lore of existing settings. It advanced the metaplot of the Forgotten Realms, and I don’t blame FR fans for not really liking the direction they took it in.

Also, isn’t it kind of a double-standard to have gotten upset about the changes 4e made, but not allow 4e fans to be upset about the changes 5e is making?


Asmodeus is still a devil in the Forgotten Realms. It is only the Nentir Vale setting that has a god named Asmodeus, so no, it was not a retcon.

Personally, even though I didn’t like the 5e Forgotten Realms take on the Raven Queen, I wasn’t bothered by it because I don’t really like FR in general, and it wasn’t changing Nentir Vale. That might not be the case anymore.

Technically, there hasn't been a Forgotten Realms take on the Raven Queen: MToF is not a FR book at all, but generic D&D with more Greyhawk and about as much Dragonlance or Spelljammer as FR. But the Dawn War version of her, per the DMG, is still a goddess.

 

[Charlaquin]

Because in the Nentir Vale she is THE god of Death, who had killed the previous god of Death in the Nentir Vale setting, Kelemvor. This is something Mearls called out as specifically awkward for FR compatibility, as Kelemvor is the existing god of Death who is still active in the game.

Nerull, actually. But yeah, considering Nerul is alive and well in Greyhawk, her role in Nentir Vale doesn’t really work for the ok-it’s-planescape-but-we’re-not-going-to-call-it-that they’re going for in 5e’s implied default setting. Heck, Nentir Vale as presented in 4e does’t fit what they’re trying to do with 5e on the whole. And that’s why, despite not caring for this new take on the Raven Queen, I was content to write her off as a completely separate character that simply happens to share the same name, just as NV Nerull and GH Nerull are separate characters, NV Asmodeus and FR Asmodeus are separate characters, etc.

This is not what’s happening in Mearls’s Heroes of the Vale campaign though. He’s not pitching it as his homebrew setting inspired by Nentir Vale, he’s pitching it as Nentir Vale in 5e. His formerly-mortal, one-eyed Erathis isn’t being acknowledged as a separate character from Nentir Vale’s Erathis, tweaked to fit 5e’s plaescape-esque setting like the Raven Queen was. She’s just being presented straightforwardly as Erathis, by the lead dev of D&D.

 

[Charlaquin]

Technically, there hasn't been a Forgotten Realms take on the Raven Queen: MToF is not a FR book at all, but generic D&D with more Greyhawk and about as much Dragonlance or Spelljammer as FR. But the Dawn War version of her, per the DMG, is still a goddess.

Sure. Point being, the MToF Raven Queen is easy for me to dismiss as not the same character as the NV Raven Queen. The Heroes of the Vale deities are not so easily separated from their Nentir Vale counterparts, which makes them look less like new characters inspired by their NV counterparts and more like actual retcons to the NV gods.

 

[Imaro]

Nerull, actually. But yeah, considering Nerul is alive and well in Greyhawk, her role in Nentir Vale doesn’t really work for the ok-it’s-planescape-but-we’re-not-going-to-call-it-that they’re going for in 5e’s implied default setting. Heck, Nentir Vale as presented in 4e does’t fit what they’re trying to do with 5e on the whole. And that’s why, despite not caring for this new take on the Raven Queen, I was content to write her off as a completely separate character that simply happens to share the same name, just as NV Nerull and GH Nerull are separate characters, NV Asmodeus and FR Asmodeus are separate characters, etc.

This is not what’s happening in Mearls’s Heroes of the Vale campaign though. He’s not pitching it as his homebrew setting inspired by Nentir Vale, he’s pitching it as Nentir Vale in 5e. His formerly-mortal, one-eyed Erathis isn’t being acknowledged as a separate character from Nentir Vale’s Erathis, tweaked to fit 5e’s plaescape-esque setting like the Raven Queen was. She’s just being presented straightforwardly as Erathis, by the lead dev of D&D.

So do you feel every streamer out there should have some kind of disclosure that this is their version of whatever setting they are running in? Because inevitably, especially as a campaign progresses things will diverge from canon... or is it understood that when one is running their game it's never an official version unless specifically called out as such.

 

[Charlaquin]

So do you feel every streamer out there should have some kind of disclosure that this is their version of whatever setting they are running in? Because inevitably, especially as a campaign progresses things will diverge from canon... or is it understood that when one is running their game it's never an official version unless specifically called out as such.

Not every streamer is the lead developer of D&D. In fact, only one of them is. Arguably, it might be nice if Chris Perkins used a similar disclaimer as well, although from what I’ve seen, he doesn’t really deviate all that much from canon lore.

 

[Parmandur]

Nerull, actually. But yeah, considering Nerul is alive and well in Greyhawk, her role in Nentir Vale doesn’t really work for the ok-it’s-planescape-but-we’re-not-going-to-call-it-that they’re going for in 5e’s implied default setting. Heck, Nentir Vale as presented in 4e does’t fit what they’re trying to do with 5e on the whole. And that’s why, despite not caring for this new take on the Raven Queen, I was content to write her off as a completely separate character that simply happens to share the same name, just as NV Nerull and GH Nerull are separate characters, NV Asmodeus and FR Asmodeus are separate characters, etc.

This is not what’s happening in Mearls’s Heroes of the Vale campaign though. He’s not pitching it as his homebrew setting inspired by Nentir Vale, he’s pitching it as Nentir Vale in 5e. His formerly-mortal, one-eyed Erathis isn’t being acknowledged as a separate character from Nentir Vale’s Erathis, tweaked to fit 5e’s plaescape-esque setting like the Raven Queen was. She’s just being presented straightforwardly as Erathis, by the lead dev of D&D.

He is pitching it as his heavily homebrewed variation, though. He's pretty upfront about that, mentions it frequently.

 

[Charlaquin]

He is pitching it as his heavily homebrewed variation, though. He's pretty upfront about that, mentions it frequently.

Ok, that’s fair. I haven’t watched the stream because I’m super disinterested (which, again, is an unfortunate way to feel about a Nentir Vale stream.) If he’s really clear and up-front about it being heavily homebrewed, then a lot of my reservations are assuaged.

 

[Imaro]

Not every streamer is the lead developer of D&D. In fact, only one of them is. Arguably, it might be nice if Chris Perkins used a similar disclaimer as well, although from what I’ve seen, he doesn’t really deviate all that much from canon lore.

Yes but he's not presenting it as the Official D&D version of the Nentir Vale... he's presenting it as his homebrew and even showcasing it as a homebrew on twitter.

 

[Azzy]

Not really though. It created a separate setting with different lore, it didn’t change the lore of existing settings.

No, that's a bad argument. I see you and raise you eladrin, tieflings, deva (and many other things that were unnecessarily changed). You can have a different setting with different lore, but when the default assumptions of the game as presented in the rulebooks change things so drastically that you have to drastically rechange things just to represent previous settings and lore without turning to setting explosion (as was done with FR), then no—your argument is bollocks.

Also, isn’t it kind of a double-standard to have gotten upset about the changes 4e made, but not allow 4e fans to be upset about the changes 5e is making?

It would be if I was trying to not allow 4e to be upset—which I'm not. I fully hope that, if there is an official 5e presentation of Nentir Vale that it keeps true to its 4e presentation. Because I know how much that doing otherwise sucks. What I am doing, is not letting the BS assertion that edition changes don't effect lore changes go unchallenged. Because they do, and 4e is the biggest example of that.