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<blockquote data-quote="pemerton" data-source="post: 6043217" data-attributes="member: 42582"><p>I'm not sure what you mean by the "more definition". In the 3E MoP the Far Realm gets a bit over 2 pages, with mechanical details like "Maddening" and the Wild Magic trait. In the 4e MoP there is one, mechanics-free page - and several chunks of the text on that page are lifted straight from the 3E version!</p><p></p><p>Again, I'm not really sure what you've got in mind. Aboleths, mind flayers and the like have about the same amount of stats in 4e as in 3E.</p><p></p><p>I personally find him hard to read (in the sense that I think the writing is bad - for me, at least, constant references by the narrator to "nameless dread" aren't the way to generate nameless dread!). And the idea that "mechanistic emptiness" is a source of horror is one which I think probably had more purchase when the Victorian period was still part of living memory. I also find his treatment of race pretty abhorrent.</p><p></p><p>But the idea of scary things coming from the nameless dark and living in the depths of the earth and sea is pretty cool. What's interesting about D&D's use of them, though, is that they have never replicated Lovecraft's idea of "indifference". Mind Flayers, Aboleths and Beholders generally seem to care about the PCs, and (demi-)humanity more generally, in a way that is quite different from truly Lovecraftian horrors.</p><p></p><p>One thing I don't really get in D&D is why Slaads have never been assimilated to aberrations - they look like frogs, they deal in entropy, and they breed by implantation. They even have a Lord of Entropy and an amoebic Lord of the Insane. I used Ssendam in my last campaign (as a Far Realm entity) and so won't be using it again this time round, but want to use Ygorl. I especially like his "travel back in time" schtick - I think that will fit nicely with some other ideas I have around the Far Realm, the Abyss and the Dusk War.</p></blockquote><p></p>
[QUOTE="pemerton, post: 6043217, member: 42582"] I'm not sure what you mean by the "more definition". In the 3E MoP the Far Realm gets a bit over 2 pages, with mechanical details like "Maddening" and the Wild Magic trait. In the 4e MoP there is one, mechanics-free page - and several chunks of the text on that page are lifted straight from the 3E version! Again, I'm not really sure what you've got in mind. Aboleths, mind flayers and the like have about the same amount of stats in 4e as in 3E. I personally find him hard to read (in the sense that I think the writing is bad - for me, at least, constant references by the narrator to "nameless dread" aren't the way to generate nameless dread!). And the idea that "mechanistic emptiness" is a source of horror is one which I think probably had more purchase when the Victorian period was still part of living memory. I also find his treatment of race pretty abhorrent. But the idea of scary things coming from the nameless dark and living in the depths of the earth and sea is pretty cool. What's interesting about D&D's use of them, though, is that they have never replicated Lovecraft's idea of "indifference". Mind Flayers, Aboleths and Beholders generally seem to care about the PCs, and (demi-)humanity more generally, in a way that is quite different from truly Lovecraftian horrors. One thing I don't really get in D&D is why Slaads have never been assimilated to aberrations - they look like frogs, they deal in entropy, and they breed by implantation. They even have a Lord of Entropy and an amoebic Lord of the Insane. I used Ssendam in my last campaign (as a Far Realm entity) and so won't be using it again this time round, but want to use Ygorl. I especially like his "travel back in time" schtick - I think that will fit nicely with some other ideas I have around the Far Realm, the Abyss and the Dusk War. [/QUOTE]
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