D&D Beyond: Rise of the Eladrin

[gyor]

Honestly the Fey/Celestial Eladrin issue was basically solved by the DMG, Elves born in Arvandar are born Celestials.

No I think the strange twists in this lore are caused by the amazing diversity of elves in general.

Wild Elves, Wood Elves, High Elves (Sun/Moon/Stars races within High Elves), Averial Elves, Sea Elves, Artic Elves, Desert Elves, Sea Elves, Dragonlance's version of Sea Elves, Lythari Elves, Drow, Fey'ri, Eldarin, Shadow Elves, and now Shadar Kai Elves. Plus Half Elf versions of all these Elves.

All of them are very very different from each other on a physical and mystical level.

Now compare that to Dwarves, Hill and Mountain Dwarves have somewhat different skin colours, a bit different cultures, but less different then many human cultures are from each other.

The same is true for Gnomes subraces and Halflings subraces, compared to Elven subraces they are basically just different cultures with minor physical differences.

The exception being Duegar, Deep Gnomes, and Ghostwise Halflings, but there is reasons for those odd exceptions. Duergar where experimented upon by Illithids, Deep Gnomes I'm not sure why caused Deep Gnomes, and Ghostwise Halflings only a single magical ability, telepathy.

 

[Bitbrain]

Did the same with Dwarves and Duergar, IMO, barring something different in the actual book. By the video, Dwarves are uncompromising fanatics who will turn on their kin for “letting themselves” get manipulated and enslaved. The vid made me want to play a Duergar, but also made me only want to ever play a dwarf in a game where the DM ignores MToF.

I interpreted it as the dwarves rejecting what the Duergar's SOCIETY had become, following their liberation from the Illithids.
They might have changed physically, but even more important is the fact that they changed emotionally. Thanks to the Illithids, the Duergar are now irredeemably treacherous, slothful, and murderously violent.

 

[doctorbadwolf]

There likely wouldn't have been all this hoop-jumping, if there had been no need/desire to reconcile 4e's depictions with prior editions' depictions. Had 4e used a different name than eladrin for its new fey-elves rather than used that of a preexisting creature from previous editions, this wouldn't be an issue. There's a lot of interesting turns of fluff in 4e, but it's really a shame that they used the names of previous edition creatures for new creatures. Now we're reaping that harvest. :/

Or they could have just let the great wheel, which is terrible, stay dead.

Or they could have not changed any races to better fit the great wheel, or something in between.

But I rather like these Eladrin. Only part I don’t like is making Corellon an indifferent donk who couldn’t care less about any mortals. 4e managed to make Llolth’s story more complex without making Corellon a d-bag, but they just *have* to change things every edition, apperently.

I interpreted it as the dwarves rejecting what the Duergar's SOCIETY had become, following their liberation from the Illithids.
They might have changed physically, but even more important is the fact that they changed emotionally. Thanks to the Illithids, the Duergar are now irredeemably treacherous, slothful, and murderously violent.

From what is said in the video, the Dwarves literally didn’t give them a chance to see what their society had become, AND the Duergar didn’t become all that until after feeling betrayed by Moradin and the Dwarves, and basically vowing revenge for their betrayal. They left the Illithid wanting to go back to being Dwarves, they wanted to go home to their kin and their gods, and were rejected because they let themselves be manipulated into “sin”. Literal victim blaming purity-obsessed fantacism.

Also, they aren’t irredeemably any of that. Mearls explicitly said that a Duergar would just socially be exactly like a dwarf if they were raised in a dwarf community.

 

[Azzy]

Or they could have just let the great wheel, which is terrible, stay dead.

Well, for everyone that dislikes it, there are those that do like it. Those that don't like it can choose not to use it, but it makes sense for WotC to leverage their existing IP (especially when they've had popular products based on said IP (Planescape: Torment, for example). I'd rather they not have taken the tact of using the Great Wheel for ALL settings (and just using it for those that originally used it—Forgotten Reams, Greyhawk, etc., and allowed settings to use it or a different cosmology as fitting for that setting—Eberron, Nentir Vale, etc.)

Or they could have not changed any races to better fit the great wheel, or something in between.

Or they could have just not recycled existing D&D terms for new ideas in the first place. :/ Now we have those that want 4e things, and those that want pre-4e things (and, likely, those that want both). So, it seems that WotC is trying to give both (in some areas), but that means fitting everything into 5e's default cosmology.

But I rather like these Eladrin. Only part I don’t like is making Corellon an indifferent donk who couldn’t care less about any mortals. 4e managed to make Llolth’s story more complex without making Corellon a d-bag, but they just *have* to change things every edition, apperently.

Apparently. :/

 

[Demetrios1453]

There likely wouldn't have been all this hoop-jumping, if there had been no need/desire to reconcile 4e's depictions with prior editions' depictions. Had 4e used a different name than eladrin for its new fey-elves rather than used that of a preexisting creature from previous editions, this wouldn't be an issue. There's a lot of interesting turns of fluff in 4e, but it's really a shame that they used the names of previous edition creatures for new creatures. Now we're reaping that harvest. :/

My thoughts exactly. The solution they came up with is pretty much the most elegant possible considering the jumbled mess the 5e team inherited. Goodness knows how they'll solve the contradiction that are the archons. My guess is that the 4e version will be the one to lose out there...

I understand that the 4e team needed to break some things in order to deal with the excesses of 3.x. But once they got going, it seems they just engaged in iconoclasm for iconoclasm's sake. That didn't go over well in 8th century Byzantium, and it certainly didn't go over well in this case either...

 

[cbwjm]

My thoughts exactly. The solution they came up with is pretty much the most elegant possible considering the jumbled mess the 5e team inherited. Goodness knows how they'll solve the contradiction that are the archons. My guess is that the 4e version will be the one to lose out there...

I understand that the 4e team needed to break some things in order to deal with the excesses of 3.x. But once they got going, it seems they just engaged in iconoclasm for iconoclasm's sake. That didn't go over well in 8th century Byzantium, and it certainly didn't go over well in this case either...

I'm pretty sure the 4e archons already exist but are called elemental myrmidons. They are in the back of the elemental evil book. Art used is reminiscent of the archons in 4e.

 

[Demetrios1453]

I'm pretty sure the 4e archons already exist but are called elemental myrmidons. They are in the back of the elemental evil book. Art used is reminiscent of the archons in 4e.

Ok, I'm not familiar enough with 4e archons to realize they are the same or relatively similar creatures as the myrmidons. So apparently my prediction already came true lol...

 

[Kobold Avenger]

I find it odd that in D&D they never really tried to use the Sidhe of Celtic Mythology as their ideal Elven Paragons.

One of the versions of Eladrin across the editions should have been renamed the Sidhe.

If they're going with this story on how Elves were originally shape-shifting spirits that got settled into forms, then I think that original Elves who settled into forms in Space would have become the Reigar of the SJ settings...

 

[doctorbadwolf]

Well, for everyone that dislikes it, there are those that do like it. Those that don't like it can choose not to use it, but it makes sense for WotC to leverage their existing IP (especially when they've had popular products based on said IP (Planescape: Torment, for example). I'd rather they not have taken the tact of using the Great Wheel for ALL settings (and just using it for those that originally used it—Forgotten Reams, Greyhawk, etc., and allowed settings to use it or a different cosmology as fitting for that setting—Eberron, Nentir Vale, etc.)

Sure. IIRC, Great Wheel was pretty polarizing before 4e (part of why 4e killed it), so I definately think making it just an understanding of the cosmos, with no official cosmology, would make more sense.

If they screw with the Eberron cosmology in any significant way (4e changed things in ways that fit the setting or were easy to imagine as nuance, rather than a change, and even the Asmodeus thing is easy because it is a recent development in world as well as being a new meta element), it will make it harder for Eberron fans to even consider it “real Eberron”, but if the 5e “multiverse” is really an “omniverse”, I’m not sure how they will deal with some settings having very different cosmologies.

Or they could have just not recycled existing D&D terms for new ideas in the first place. :/ Now we have those that want 4e things, and those that want pre-4e things (and, likely, those that want both). So, it seems that WotC is trying to give both (in some areas), but that means fitting everything into 5e's default cosmology.

I get where you’re coming from, but I’m not really motivated to worry about decisions they made 10 years ago. IMO, they also shouldn’t have made dnd an interconnected multiverse, but instead should have just left each world wholly separate, with no need to “reconcile” different elf stories, but that ship sailed before I hit high school.

But even in the context of those compounding mistakes, I think the way their handling a lot of it is just continued super bad decisions.

Apparently.

It’d be fine if it somehow didn’t cause players new to my group to expect things I’ve never read, or that my table has never used, out of the lore of the game. It’s frustrating enough when players refuse to bother reading setting material, and come to me with a Scottish-style Dwarf Dragon Sorcerer in Eberron, and I’ve gotta figure out an exotic branch of Dwarves to make sense of it. Now I’ve also got to deal with, at some point in the future, players that think of dnd Dwarves as uncompromising zealots, and think of Corellon as an “absent parent” that doesn’t really care about the elves.

I do like the mechanics so far, though. So there’s that.

 

[gyor]

I think they plan on dealing with settings that have different cosmologies at least in part by making their crystal spheres far more distant. So at the centre you have FR, Greyhawk, Kyrnn, then further out you have maybe Birthright, Mystara, Nentir Vale and then further out you have Eberron and Athas, who are far enough away that they have separate outer planes and some other strange cosmological issues. Ravenloft, Planescape, and Spelljammer are connective tissue.