D&D 5E Points of Light setting and current cross-over strategy: Round peg in the square hole.

Corpsetaker said:

The point I am trying to make is that if you sift through 30+ years of published work you will occasionally find references of this and it is rare indeed. If this was such a common thing then we would have seen more crossovers in products and novels through all those years. There is TONS of inconsistencies in a lot of it. Mortals can pass between these worlds and yet the gods cannot? There were two Lolths and yet they were considered two separate entities that had nothing to do with each other?

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For what its worth, Planescape states there is one Lolth, and her domain "touches every plane where she is worshiped.". (On Hallowed Ground). There is certainly some inconsistencies between how Oerth and Faerun has treated her, but overall Lolth is Lloth.

And some deities DO cross over: Tyr, Tyche, Loviatar, Silvanus, and Mielikki and Oghma all came from other worlds (Finns, Greeks, Norse, and Celts) to become Faerunian powers, as did all the Multhorand (Egyptian) pantheon. Mystara has Thor, Odin and a few other Norse deities masquerading as Immortals as well. The racial pantheons of the elves, dwarves, gnomes, halflings, and monstrous powers are shared among Oerth and Faerun (and a few other worlds), Bane was worshiped in a few domains of Ravenloft (due to importing of faith, Lathandar (as the Morninglord) Osiris, Isis, and Set (Egypt) and Belenus (Celts) are worshpped there too). Even Eberron insinuates that the racial pantheons were once worshiped before the Sovereign Host swallowed them up.

Corpsetaker said:

This crossover stuff was never fully played upon for some reason. From the looks of this new Yawning Portal product, it looks as if they are making the Realms into this Sigil like place where all these modules are suddenly common place and that people jump back and forth from Toril to Oerth and beyond.

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No, they're saying the STORIES of these places have filtered across the multiverse. One DM could say "In my game, the Tomb of Horrors is a legend on a world far removed from Faerun" and another says "Well, in my game, its right next to Myth Drannor!" and the book doesn't say either is wrong; it just says the legend of the Tomb exists and if there is any adventurer stupid enough to try and find it, these are its rules." The book has an Appendix (like PotA did) for putting it whereever you like!

That's a sight better than "It now exists only on Nerath".

Corpsetaker said:

I could maybe understand if Wizards wrote up this article about something happening in the Realms that suddenly made all these other places accessible to most but they didn't. Now Teleport with Error allowed you to teleport to other planes of existence but that would be like the Plane of Shadow or the like.

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The rumored Acerack-based adventure hinted at in The Hero and Dungeonology might address this. Or it might not. They may leave it up to the DM.

Corpsetaker said:

From Wikipedia: Like the Planescape setting, Spelljammer unifies most of the other AD&D settings and provides a canonical method for allowing characters from one setting (such as Dragonlance) to travel to another (such as the Forgotten Realms). However, unlike Planescape it keeps all of the action on the Prime Material Plane and uses the crystal spheres, and the "phlogiston" between them, to form natural barriers between otherwise incompatible settings.

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From the Tome of Magic (2e): Although initially discovered and researched on Toril, the FORGOTTEN REALMS@ campaign world, the art of wild magic has quickly spread to other places. Wild mages, through teleporting, spelljamming, planar hopping, and even walking, have carried the precepts of wild magic to lands and worlds far removed from Toril.

Corpsetaker said:

Just too many inconsistencies.

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You think this is bad: try making sense of the Doctor Who timeline!

Corpsetaker said:

I posted the entire quote to show the inconsistencies in the entire message.

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Inconsistency, in the Forgotten Realms???

I am shocked, SHOCKED, to find campiness and lightheartedness in this establishment!!!

Corpsetaker said:

Laugh Jeff Albertson laughed with this post.



I don't know if you are aware or not since you just seem to enjoy clicking the laugh button so much but it says "laugh with" and not "laugh at" anymore. Each time you click it you aren't getting the desired effect you think you are getting. That's like someone posting 2 + 2 = 4 and you start laughing.



You are essentially making yourself look foolish because you are "laughing with" something that wasn't posted as a joke and you are giving me XP each time you do it.



How about instead of using your laugh button to try and make some joke out of other people, you try and actually post something?

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You must realize, of course, that insisting there was no humor value merely adds to the hilarity...?

Parmandur said:

You must realize, of course, that insisting there was no humor value merely adds to the hilarity...?

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D&D: Serious Business.

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Considering the very next AP from WotC centers about one of Waterdeeps most renowned establishments and the tales told there of adventures from all kinds of places, including Oerth, I can say that [MENTION=6776548]Corpsetaker[/MENTION] is absolutely wrong. Oerth is accessible to Farun, in cannon.

I don't feel qualified to comment on these deep matters of Realms lore, but the FR attracts big cosmic events that rewrite the fundamental assumptions of the world like pizza attracts a hungry gamer. Even if the Realms were isolated before, we just had the Sundering (big cosmic event etc. etc.), and now crossovers are more of a thing.

As for whether a god that shows in in 2 settings is the same one, I just want to point out that Aspects of gods have been a thing for a while. So if you can a little chunk of a god that is basically independent of the god to show up, it isn't much of a jump to say that the big god is just a greater aspect of some even bigger god. So there might be some uber 5 headed dragon goddess out in the multiverse that Tiamat and Takhisis are just greater aspects of.

Jester David said:

Oh, I know I shouldn't feed the troll but...

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dave2008 said:

Wow [MENTION=37579]Jester David[/MENTION] and [MENTION=907]Staffan[/MENTION] that is one of the best troll beat downs by evidence I have ever seen. The question is, did you remember to use fire?

Now I guess we will see what kind of person [MENTION=6776548]Corpsetaker[/MENTION] is in how he/she responds to your evidence.

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Hey folks, we'd prefer you not to accuse someone of trolling. If you're wrong, you insulted an innocent poster. If you're right, well - it's exactly like Staffan said: Internet trolls really like being flamed. (Also attention in general.) So either way, nothing good comes of it.

Corpsetaker said:

... I have reported you as well. ...

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Please don't say you're reporting someone. If you're going to report, just report and let us decide whether it merits intervening.

If you have any questions, PM me.

-Darkness,
EN World moderator

Darkness said:

Hey folks, we'd prefer you not to accuse someone of trolling. If you're wrong, you insulted an innocent poster. If you're right, well - it's exactly like Staffan

-Darkness,
EN World moderator

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Good points - thank you for the reminder!

MechaTarrasque said:

I don't feel qualified to comment on these deep matters of Realms lore, but the FR attracts big cosmic events that rewrite the fundamental assumptions of the world like pizza attracts a hungry gamer. Even if the Realms were isolated before, we just had the Sundering (big cosmic event etc. etc.), and now crossovers are more of a thing.

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I would not be at all shocked if this is the way the designers are leaning. I've heard a couple of times now hints to the effect that the veil is thinner than it used to be between the Realms and elsewhere, and that seems like as good an explanation as any.

MechaTarrasque said:

As for whether a god that shows in in 2 settings is the same one, I just want to point out that Aspects of gods have been a thing for a while. So if you can a little chunk of a god that is basically independent of the god to show up, it isn't much of a jump to say that the big god is just a greater aspect of some even bigger god. So there might be some uber 5 headed dragon goddess out in the multiverse that Tiamat and Takhisis are just greater aspects of.

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This, yes. And isn't one of the qualities of a god that it stands outside human logic and comprehension? I for one love paradoxes that add to the mystery of the Powers; they're not supposed to be things we can entirely understand.

Jester David said:

*shrug* I could be wrong. You'd think I was human or something.

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So is [MENTION=6776548]Corpsetaker[/MENTION]. But you seem to think it matters that Corpsetaker says stuff that is mistaken! (And he's talking about stuff quite a bit more obscure than what you were - the Elder Elemental Eye and his demented followers is called out in the 4e MM (p 52, in the sidebar "The Birth of the Abyss" - hardly an obscure reference.)