After Waterdeep what should be the next FR adventure?

Parmandur · Sep 15, 2018

gyor said:
Cleric hints at Volo's Guide to Spirits and Spectres and the Swashbuckler Rogue suggests the next campaign will be the Pirate one that people have speculated will be next, me included. Not sure what "because of where she is" is supposed to mean, perhaps a theocracy of some sort, maybe menzo even.

I'll have to listen to that bit again, he didn't say much, but he and Tito were definitely dancing around some AP setting related spoilers.

Parmandur · Sep 15, 2018

Jester David said:
Which is the problem.
Some people walked out of 3e thinking it wasn’t enough content. Many were happy with 4e’s daily DDI crunch.

Which is fine, but that’s not good for the game. We don’t need thirty-five races and twenty classes. Some of that can be left for DMsGuild...

I agree in principle, but I think they have material and room for similar books based around several different themes before it gets tired (Dragons, Undead, Genies, Fey, Celestials). Heck, we're getting a second monster heavy book this year (Ravnica), which suggests future possibilities (Eberron hardcover chock full of monsters, Dark Sun...).

Jester David · Sep 15, 2018

Parmandur said:
I agree in principle, but I think they have material and room for similar books based around several different themes before it gets tired (Dragons, Undead, Genies, Fey, Celestials). Heck, we're getting a second monster heavy book this year (Ravnica), which suggests future possibilities (Eberron hardcover chock full of monsters, Dark Sun...).

I agree about that, especially dragons and undead. (I would love more Fey lore as well.) Hopefully these books will be more focused than Tome of Foes that is quarter book of humanoids and quarter planar rivals followed by a mixed bag of monsters.
I just don’t think we need 120 pages of lore followed by 120+ of new monsters each time.
We have a lot already, and it’s pretty easy to hack and customize monsters.

Well... maybe dragons and undead. The WotC team has been adamant they don’t want to just redo books. And we have a Draconimicom in two editions already (if not three) and a comparable number of undead books with Libris Mortis and Open Grave. They might be more hesitant to redo...

Parmandur · Sep 15, 2018

Jester David said:
I agree about that, especially dragons and undead. (I would love more Fey lore as well.) Hopefully these books will be more focused than Tome of Foes that is quarter book of humanoids and quarter planar rivals followed by a mixed bag of monsters.
I just don’t think we need 120 pages of lore followed by 120+ of new monsters each time.
We have a lot already, and it’s pretty easy to hack and customize monsters.

Well... maybe dragons and undead. The WotC team has been adamant they don’t want to just redo books. And we have a Draconimicom in two editions already (if not three) and a comparable number of undead books with Libris Mortis and Open Grave. They might be more hesitant to redo...

Well, there is still room for creative remixing: putting the undead together with the Fey, say, to contrast the Shadowfell and the Feywild. Catch two different audiences that way, too.

Dragons they have basically endless amounts of material. I can see whole pages dedicated to building Dragons as NPCs, allies or Big Bads. They could easily do 120 pages of Dragon lore, without even being overly redundant with previous editions, and still have 100+ pages of Dragon related statblocks. They could throw in lore and options for Dragonborn, they can have Subclasses (Dragon Pact Warlock, Dragon Domain Cleric), they can have a Half-Drsgon subrace template to throw on different Races, they can put in rules for playing Dragons.

I don't see them running out of appropriate topics any year soon even at a slightly accelerated rate, and lore plus monsters aren't a major bloat concern.

Parmandur · Sep 15, 2018

Just after the 1:04 mark in the latest Dragon Talk:

Morbeck: "The second one is going to be a female Cleric, for reasons that become obvious once you see the area which it [a new Endless Quest book being worked on] is set in, which I probably shouldn't talk about quite yet"

Greg Tito: "Nah, that's right, exactly; *I* know what you are talking about, though."

[MENTION=6670153]gyor[/MENTION] obviously not much to go on, but I know the topic of Forgotten Realms religion is your jam: any thoughts on what area might make "a female Cleric" an obvious choice just by the location itself?

Demetrios1453 · Sep 15, 2018

Jester David said:
Which is half the point.
There's five or six must-have races that need to be done. But after that they get to the stuff few people care about: there was a lot more filler monsters in Tome of Foes and it's only going to get worse in the next monster book.
They don't need to keep pumping out filler races and monsters and should pull back on that content except when it's necessary. Save that stuff until they have the content that's really wanted. Just doing content for the sake of content is how you get bloat...

While I agree that MtoF had a higher percentage of "filler monsters" than VGtM, it definitely wasn't to an intolerable level (like the later 3.x Monster Manuals were), and I believe there are enough important previous edition monsters out there that still need updating for at least one or maybe two similar monster books (this would include important monsters in adventures that still need to be collated into actual monster books). And that's just general, generic monsters, since, as others have said, they could probably get away with doing dragons and undead in their own books (I for one, would like to see either skeleton or zombie templates, or at least enough examples statted out that you don't need templates).

Demetrios1453 · Sep 15, 2018

Parmandur said:
Just after the 1:04 mark in the latest Dragon Talk:

Morbeck: "The second one is going to be a female Cleric, for reasons that become obvious once you see the area which it [a new Endless Quest book being worked on] is set in, which I probably shouldn't talk about quite yet"

Greg Tito: "Nah, that's right, exactly; *I* know what you are talking about, though."

@gyor obviously not much to go on, but I know the topic of Forgotten Realms religion is your jam: any thoughts on what area might make "a female Cleric" an obvious choice just by the location itself?

I'm not gyor, but the distinction may be a non-standard deity she worships, which immediately brings the Old Empires (and their unique pantheons) to mind. Perhaps an ancient Egypt-themed adventure in Mulhorand, with temples, pyramids, and mummies? An update to, or re-imagining of, Desert of Desolation?

gyor · Sep 15, 2018

Demetrios1453 said:
I'm not gyor, but the distinction may be a non-standard deity she worships, which immediately brings the Old Empires (and their unique pantheons) to mind. Perhaps an ancient Egypt-themed adventure in Mulhorand, with temples, pyramids, and mummies? An update to, or re-imagining of, Desert of Desolation?

Possibly, except only certain Mulhorandi Gods had a rule of only Female Clerics, Isis and Hathor I believe, but who knows if that is still the case. And even then the other Gods have male clerics.

Honestly the importance of both gender and being a cleric and that being tied to a city suggests just one thing, a Drow city. It's might not be Menz, Lolth has other cities her clergy rule, but it could be Menz. I'm wracking my brain for alternatives. Skull Port Cleric Eilistree perhaps, some editions had being female a requirement to be her cleric.

Most FR Gods don't have gender restrictions,, and the few that did, might not anymore.

Still that leaves a Drow City, Skullport, and long shot Mulhorand and Unther. Extra long shot Dambrath, it was a female theocracy of Half Drow dedicated to Lovitar, but those we're other thrown by humans in 4e, with that status still active in 5e. There are not many none Drow female dominated theocracies in FR.

gyor · Sep 15, 2018

Parmandur said:
I'll have to listen to that bit again, he didn't say much, but he and Tito were definitely dancing around some AP setting related spoilers.

If we try to combine both those ideas into a single AP, you could get a Sea of Fallen Stars Pirate book, with perhaps thr female cleric serving umberlee in the pirate ilses, or even a Mulhorand Cleric after all or a Rashemi Hathran (mix arcane/divine caster).

Parmandur · Sep 15, 2018

Demetrios1453 said:
I'm not gyor, but the distinction may be a non-standard deity she worships, which immediately brings the Old Empires (and their unique pantheons) to mind. Perhaps an ancient Egypt-themed adventure in Mulhorand, with temples, pyramids, and mummies? An update to, or re-imagining of, Desert of Desolation?

That was my initial thought: given the success of CoS, how fruitful Perkins consultation with Hickman apparently was, and that DoD is one of Perkins favorite modules, I think we will see that one day regardless.

gyor said:
Possibly, except only certain Mulhorandi Gods had a rule of only Female Clerics, Isis and Hathor I believe, but who knows if that is still the case. And even then the other Gods have male clerics.

Honestly the importance of both gender and being a cleric and that being tied to a city suggests just one thing, a Drow city. It's might not be Menz, Lolth has other cities her clergy rule, but it could be Menz. I'm wracking my brain for alternatives. Skull Port Cleric Eilistree perhaps, some editions had being female a requirement to be her cleric.

Most FR Gods don't have gender restrictions,, and the few that did, might not anymore.

Still that leaves a Drow City, Skullport, and long shot Mulhorand and Unther. Extra long shot Dambrath, it was a female theocracy of Half Drow dedicated to Lovitar, but those we're other thrown by humans in 4e, with that status still active in 5e. There are not many none Drow female dominated theocracies in FR.

Good run-down: one of the current Endless Quest books is associated with Out of the Abyss, and a second Drow centric AP would seem a bit much: though I would expect a TftYP follow-up to end with the DQ sequence following on Against the Giants. I feel like Mulhorand seems a good bet, but it is...odd...as a clue, all around.

gyor said:
If we try to combine both those ideas into a single AP, you could get a Sea of Fallen Stars Pirate book, with perhaps thr female cleric serving umberlee in the pirate ilses, or even a Mulhorand Cleric after all or a Rashemi Hathran (mix arcane/divine caster).

He didn't say anything to suggest that they were tied together, or even that the Swashbuckler book would be sea-related. He said nothing coy about it, actually, it was about the female Cleric book that he and Tito got conspiratorial and odd. A mystery, for now.