WotC Can we salvage Toril?

Sembia is explicitly un-warlike, which challenges historical stereotypes re: Germany. I always thought of them as more akin to Switzerland (which admittedly is Germany-adjacent both culturally and physically IRL).

LOL though jesus this bit from the FR wiki: "Corruption was rampant in Sembian society, so as long as it did not interfere with the business at hand. Shady dealings were celebrated and the nation exhibited a vague racism, turning away outlanders that "looked different" than the lighter-skinned families that had long-established businesses within the realm."

😬 😬 😬 😬 😬 😬

Yikes.

That is literally the first time I've read about canon colourism in the FR, and allegedly from the 3E FRCS.
 

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Honestly the portrayal of Cormyr since 1E manages to make it seem like a bureaucratic hellhole which hates adventurers a lot, rather than being full of "noble knights".
Maybe how the Americans see the British?
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Remathilis

Legend
Kamigawa and Kara-Tur are very, very different things in the details and execution.

Kara-Tur is pretty much exemplary of the laziest and least effective kind of "Asia-themed" setting, in which it's a big morass of poorly-researched takes on "Asian" in a bland and broad way, with a lot of stuff jammed together. It's not "hateful", but it's just... crap and representative of an unfortunate take on "Asian" culture that was once common.

Whereas Kamigawa is a fairly tight and specific thing, focused on Japanese culture and mythology (specifically) and with a cyberpunk theme.

It's a serious mistake to see them as similar. It is possible that WotC could redo Kara-Tur to be less, well, bad and lazy, but the question is, would it be worth it? Would it be more successful and popular than a Kamigawa setting-book? I suspect not, because Kamigawa could add a whole bunch of cyberpunk stuff to D&D for those who wanted it.

On Toril in general, I think there are really only two ways from the FR to go forwards from where it is:

1) The cautious option, where there is maybe a broader FR book than now in terms of the "core realms", but Maztica, Zakhara, Kara-Tur etc. are still not detailed in any meaningful way. This would probably be the safest thing to do, but even that isn't without risk, because people will ask questions about why they aren't covered. I'm not sure it would achieve much but I suspect it would be popular and it could update SCAG mechanical material to the DND2024 standard (Tieflings etc).

2) The "new edition, new FR" option. WotC have already expressed the opinion that they are not bound by previous canon, and honestly, they could go with a new FR book that was more "full-on", and "rebooted" Maztica, Zakhara, and Kara-Tur. Maztica must be rebooted to be used. You cannot light-touch retcon your way out of the what the original Maztica books did. That just has to go - I think if you did go retcon instead of just pretending it never happened, you'd want to say something which amounted to "Oh the 2E stuff was nonsense written by an invader", and go from there, not even using that material. Zakhara isn't in that bad a state, imho, so it could be more light-touch and just putting a solidly positive spin on it. Kara-Tur needs a rewrite for somewhat different reasons to Maztica. You'd need a pretty big book to be even mildly respectful of them though.

I suspect the first is a lot more likely than the second. If it wasn't for the multimedia strategy I'd kind of suspect they were going to move away from the FR generally, but given we have a movie, possibly one or more TV shows, BG3 (i.e. a pretty big-deal AAA CRPG), and likely other games on the way, likely landing in 2022 and 2023, so just before the 2024 new edition, I don't think a move away from the FR is terribly likely. I do think they're going to update it though. Especially as they have the excuse of the new edition.

As a total aside, on a certain level, the Moonshae Isles (i.e. The British Isles and Scandinavia - or rather just the "colourful" bits of those to a 1980s American eye) are almost as bad as Kara-Tur (not Maztica though, that's a whole other level of "yikes"). They're an example of a very similar cultural phenomenon (Celtomania instead of Orientalism), but they were at least done by people who have a background with those countries/cultures, and whilst kinda gross, at least can't really be said to be racist, just incredibly dumb (they're also more forgivable because they're a much smaller part of the world). If I was passing through I'd probably get rid of the word Ffolk though, esp. as it's a Germanic-derived word given a hilariously idiotic cod-Welsh spin (is there even a quasi-Germany in the FR btw? I actually can't think of one of the top of my head).
First off, I'd like to thank you for acknowledging that the Moonshaes are very much the same serial-numbers filed off pseudo-Earth culture that Kara-Tur or Zakhara are. You can say the same thing about Multhorand and most of the Old Empires as well. It's not a surprise that during the Spellplague, most of the "basically fantasy x" cultures got yeeted off Toril and replaced.

That said, there was a discussion had about monsters with unique cultural identity (genies and raksasha were the examples) and if its okay to use such creatures if the setting doesn't have a cultural equivalent to balance it. (IE you shouldn't use genies if your don't have a fantasy Arabia). I think solely to avoid that kind of concern, you'll see Faerun keep these Fantasy X parts, if only to justify oni or genies.

(It also helped fill out the example human ethnicity section of the PHB to show their are people oh all colors on Toril).

But as for actually developing these areas? I think WotC has no appetite for it.
 

You can say the same thing about Multhorand and most of the Old Empires as well. It's not a surprise that during the Spellplague, most of the "basically fantasy x" cultures got yeeted off Toril and replaced.
Yeah you can, though I think Mulhorand, Chessenta etc. are somehow both lazier (Mulhorand is really very "fantasy Egypt based on ahistorical stereotypes GO!" for example) and somehow less insulting (I think because they're based on more ancient cultures and they're so lazy and by the numbers it's hard to take them seriously). But yeah if anyone was going to get yeeted, it made sense for the various most extreme and un-nuanced rip-off-of-history nations to be it.

POCGamer made an interesting critique of this decision, basically saying it amounted to just another form of erasure and disregard, and was almost as bad as doing such a crap job in the first place (or perhaps worse), but he's an old FR history buff (really expert on certain eras), so I think he was a bit influenced by that. I do kind of agree that rebooting Maztica would have been better than shooting it into space or whatever, but I think 4E showed WotC recognised a lot of stuff was problematic long before it actually admitted to recognising stuff was problematic, and tried to usher it out the back door (including the changes to Vistani in that edition, which were akin to the later 5E changes).

As 5E was a huge "SORRY GROGS PLEASE COME BACK" edition (not just for grogs, really, also people who were new with 3E), WotC felt the need to reverse all this stuff (including reversing the Vistani straight back into racism lol), where for the longer-term health of the FR, it might have been better to stick with the changes, because now there's an absolute ton of problematic stuff about the FR they have to address sooner or later.

Well, or they could quietly move away from the FR, but I honestly only expect that to happen if the movie flops and the other media stuff is disappointing. It's entirely possible to envision a situation where, by the end of this year, the D&D movie has been unsuccessful, none of the FR-set TV series are actually in production still, and where BG3 comes out to mediocre reviews. At that point, there's not a lot tying WotC to the FR, and whilst it may be disruptive to 2024 plans, they'd still have time to change direction and maybe move further away from the FR (assuming the likely FR book isn't out this year, but I'd be surprised if it was).
 

Tales and Chronicles

Jewel of the North, formerly know as vincegetorix
Honestly the portrayal of Cormyr since 1E manages to make it seem like a bureaucratic hellhole which hates adventurers a lot, rather than being full of "noble knights".
yeah, I see them as how the French of early renaissance/late medieval are treated in American media: posh bureaucrats who like the ''idea'' of knight and their romantic ideals, not much the actual job of being a knight.

Since I know you are a fan of Dragon Age: think the Orlesians, with the Sword Coast being more like the Free Marches.

That's a little sad, because the FRs lack a proper, functioning, fantasy feudal kingdom (EDIT: even if real life properly functioning kingdoms were indeed a rarity :p)
 
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Yora

Legend
Maybe how the Americans see the British?
maxresdefault.jpg
Cormyr is a country of noble knights, which is why they make sure to red tape any ambitious peasants with a sword.
As 5E was a huge "SORRY GROGS PLEASE COME BACK" edition (not just for grogs, really, also people who were new with 3E), WotC felt the need to reverse all this stuff (including reversing the Vistani straight back into racism lol), where for the longer-term health of the FR, it might have been better to stick with the changes, because now there's an absolute ton of problematic stuff about the FR they have to address sooner or later.
Don't need to address anything if you release nothing.

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Remathilis

Legend
POCGamer made an interesting critique of this decision, basically saying it amounted to just another form of erasure and disregard, and was almost as bad as doing such a crap job in the first place (or perhaps worse), but he's an old FR history buff (really expert on certain eras), so I think he was a bit influenced by that. I do kind of agree that rebooting Maztica would have been better than shooting it into space or whatever, but I think 4E showed WotC recognised a lot of stuff was problematic long before it actually admitted to recognising stuff was problematic, and tried to usher it out the back door (including the changes to Vistani in that edition, which were akin to the later 5E changes).

I actually think this was part of a design system that is older than 4e; it dates back to Eberron. Basically, I think they wanted to get away from Fantasy X cultures in their settings as a way to both avoid the lazy stereotypes and to make D&D's branding stronger. In FRs case, I think it was a concerted effort to make Faerun feel "uniquely D&D" rather than a mishmash of cultures and stray myth. In Eberron, it was too design from the ground up to avoid creating a Kara-Tur or Maztica. (Tying some RW cultural elements to fantasy races was still a misstep however). I think they are still trying to find the right balance. For example, I'm still not enraptured with the wholesale Egyptian pantheon being in Mulhorand, but I don't mind the idea of a place with pyramids and mummies.
 

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