D&D 5E What do we know about The Sundering?

[Mercurius]

After almost a year away from paying attention to all things RPGs, I feel like I've been catching up over the last month or two. One of the things that has been on the edge of my awareness but I'm only recognizing right now is "the Sundering" for the Forgotten Realms, which doesn't seem to get talked about a lot here, which is surprising to me because it offers us something relatively concrete about the direction of 5E and the Forgotten Realms.

From what I gather, the first two adventures are out. I've browsed some reviews on Amazon but not looked at the actual products. I assume they take place in the 4e version of the game? One review mentioned that they are available in the playtest package which I found not to be the case.

Anyhow, how are these adventures? And what do they tell us about the direction going forward? Are they leading up to some big cataclysmic event that will turn the Forgotten Realms into the state it will be in for 5e? (perhaps a return to gray box era Realms?) When does the last product come out?

 

[Scrivener of Doom]

We know it's going to largely reset the deities and geography of the Realms to their pre-4E versions, more or less.

The adventures don't really give any clues.

Ghosts of Dragonspear Castle is not part of the Sundering quintology so provides no information.

Murder in Baldur's Gate and Legacy of the Crystal Shard both suggest the deities are going to be a bit more hands on again for a while, and then fade away (... until such time as WotC decides it's time to have them star in a lacklustre trilogy). And, yes, they're set in the 4E timeline about ten years after the FRCG (IIRC).

MiBG is, IMO, absolute crap but it seems to be fairly well-received by a lot of FR fans. It doesn't provide any clues of the new direction other than that Bhaal seems to be making a comeback.

LotCS is rather good, IMO, and provides the basis for a rather good little mini-campaign. Again IMO, it shows the influence of R A Salvatore with the undwarven names for dwarves and un-Realmsian names in general, but those are small quibbles: this adventure does seem to have a lot of potential.

There are no hints of a lead-up to a cataclysmic event in the two adventures so I still don't know what form the Sundering is going to take, only that it will reset the Realms to something less 4E-ish.

 

[Mercurius]

Thanks [MENTION=87576]Scrivener of Doom[/MENTION] - you pretty much answered all of my questions, except for one: Do we know when the last installment comes out?

It sounds like they're trying to pull off one of those "It was all just a weird dream" moves with 4e.

 

[Blackwarder]

Personaly I think that MiBG is an excellent adventure.

Warder

 

[Jester David]

They're said certain things are happening. That the High God AO is returning to rewrite the Tablets of Fate and separate the worlds.
So Abir and Torril are separating again, which is how they're going to return all the lost nations.
It will also let the gods gain or lose power. So much of the conflict is happening as the gods empower chosen to seek power to ensure their portfolio remains and further their agenda.

So far this has just been in the background.
It drives the story in adventures, but this is really the set-up of the events. And supposedly the novels are just telling side stories or personal adventures caused by the Sundering. So far they haven't revealing where the actual events of the Sundering will be detailed. So at the moment it's just this big, meta background event.

 

[Li Shenron]

We know it's going to largely reset the deities and geography of the Realms to their pre-4E versions, more or less.

Really? What sense does it make?

I thought it was just going to be another "rift" in the history of FR's metaplot, but not a "rewind" to a previous status...

And I think I remember them saying that since 5e, it should be possible to play FR at different point in history, although what does this mean I have no idea, since you could do that in any edition already, as long as you do all the job yourself.

Also, wasn't there some announcement that the exact details of 5e FR would depend on the results of gamers playing the Sundering adventures at specific conventions or worldwide FLGS events?

 

[Li Shenron]

#@!# forum glitch...

 

[Jester David]

Really? What sense does it make?

I thought it was just going to be another "rift" in the history of FR's metaplot, but not a "rewind" to a previous status...

And I think I remember them saying that since 5e, it should be possible to play FR at different point in history, although what does this mean I have no idea, since you could do that in any edition already, as long as you do all the job yourself.

Also, wasn't there some announcement that the exact details of 5e FR would depend on the results of gamers playing the Sundering adventures at specific conventions or worldwide FLGS events?

They want to undo some of the least popular changes but try and keep the good ideas, avoiding a full rewind.
It's a non-reboot return-to-basics using established plot threads.

They're saying you can play at any point, but the support for that remains to be seen. the future plans, like the Sundering itself, is very nebulous.

--edit--
Okay, not a Realms scholar. But this is what I understand.

The Tablets of a Fate were broken during the Avatar Crisis/ Time of Troubles. Now they're being remade. The idea being that the last few Realms-shaking events are related to the Tablets being unmade. So the chaos of the last few hundred years are the result of that incident.
Now the gods are stabilizing things.

The changes for the 4e Realms caused problems.
Because it took place in game space the novel readers missed the story. And novel writers were not consulted and had to deal with a time jump that killed most characters.
Many gods vanished and several nations, removing some favourite options. Other nations were dramatically changed. Heroic organizations were downplayed. Famous ally NPCs vanished or were depowered. And the forced the entire world to conform to the idea of Points of Light.

 

[DEFCON 1]

It's not just "pre-4E" status quo... there's "pre-Time of Troubles" status quo mixed in there too, I believe. Basically... after Ao realized that kicking the gods down to Faerun and letting them run roughshod over everything did not actually achieve the purpose he wanted (which was for them to learn a little humility)... he's cleaning up the messes from ToT through the Spellplague, putting many of the gods back in their place, and then cutting off the planet from the heavens so that the gods can't screw around with much of anything anymore. The gods will go back to being distant observers, rather than active participants in the goings-on on Faerun.

At least... this is what I seem to remember hearing about it, more or less.

 

[Sword of Spirit]

It doesn't really sound likely to get those FR fans who didn't like 4e back on board. I'd expect they would play in a FR that never experienced a Spellplague and 4e.

4e fans aren't going to be too keen on taking the 4e out of the Realms.

New players will judge a setting based on its own merits rather than how it relates to past incarnations.

Ed Greenwood hated the 4e FR and is enthusiastically on board with the Sundering, whatever that implies.

I guess I'm not sure who the Sundering is aimed at. Maybe its all about Drizzt and selling novels.

FR isn't my favorite or least favorite setting. I'm going to use it as if 4e FR never happened, so I don't personally see anything the Sundering has to offer me, unless it ends up creating alternate timelines/parallel multiverses to choose from.