D&D 5E (2024) WotC Should Make 5.5E Specific Setting

[Maxperson]

Look at the changes to Spelljammer. It wasnt well received by well anyone.
Throw the baby out with the bathwater. Also see 4E FR.

Spelljammer was a badly done 5e setting, yes. The new Forgotten Realms was a well done one by all accounts. Why should I assume that Dark Sun would be done badly?

 

[Eyes of Nine]

Have any of the newly released settings actually stuck?… Ravnica, Theros, Strixhaven etc. or did they sell for a few months and get Forgotten completely.

Heh gives a whole different spin to the name "Forgotten Realms"

 

[Yaarel]

What I'm arguing against is that it HAS to be done but only for some PHB options. Like I said, change the Dragonborn First Reader to an elf or a dwarf or any other PHB race and I can leverage canon material for my background. But, Dragonborn? Nope, sorry, you must make it up 100% on your own.

I agree with the point that a popular species expects some elaboration in a kitchensink setting.

There are other considerations too.

For a Dragonborn the contacts within the setting might be the individual Dragons who are literal ancestors, who are likely still alive, rather than a prominent Dragonborn culture. There are many Dragons in Faerun.

Also, maybe Forgotten Realms isnt strictly kitchensink, but over time has crystallized into a distinctive world setting. At least, Dragonborn seem rare in the Sword Coast region even if more populous elsewhere.

They are all from Tymanther as far as I know. ... The Dragonborn lore explicitly says that they have spread throughout the realms as fine mercenaries.

Yes, there is a Dragonborn culture that arrived in Tymanther from an Abier alternate reality. This culture was recently decimated, but a remnant survives, and a diaspora fled. Sword Coast seems to have significant contact with this diaspora.

At the same time the Dragons who are native to planet Toril can also have reproduced Dragonborn. There might be populous Dragonborn cultures elsewhere on Toril, some of them ancient.

 

[Hussar]

Again, not talking about what "might" be true. I'm talking about ACTUAL canon.

There canonically no dragonborn mercenaries in Baldur's Gate. The are not mentioned. Even Decent into Avernus, where we actually HAVE Flaming Fist Mercenaries outlined, does not have a single Dragonborn. IIRC, there is a single Dragonborn in the module, but, not in Baldur's Gate.

So, @Maxperson, no. You have just made stuff up. Perfectly reasonable stuff. And, frankly, again, it's what we all do. But, that's the point, you had to make it up. It wasn't actually part of the setting. You could have made up exactly the same stuff in any setting and it wouldn't make the slightest difference. Nothing you made actually is part of the setting.

 

[Maxperson]

Yes, there is a Dragonborn culture that arrived in Tymanther from an Abier alternate reality. This culture was recently decimated, but a remnant survives, and a diaspora fled. Sword Coast seems to have significant contact with this diaspora.

At the same time the Dragons who are native to planet Toril can also have reproduced Dragonborn. There might be populous Dragonborn cultures elsewhere on Toril, some of them ancient.

That's the invention that @Hussar said I had to stay away from. As DM I can make that happen, but going strictly by 5e lore, they are all from Tymanther.

 

[Maxperson]

Again, not talking about what "might" be true. I'm talking about ACTUAL canon.

There canonically no dragonborn mercenaries in Baldur's Gate. The are not mentioned. Even Decent into Avernus, where we actually HAVE Flaming Fist Mercenaries outlined, does not have a single Dragonborn. IIRC, there is a single Dragonborn in the module, but, not in Baldur's Gate.

So your argument is that it's canon that they are spread throughout the Realms, but that they don't exist anywhere outside of Tymanther because nothing explicitly is typed out as to where they are?

As far as I'm concerned "spread throughout the Realms" means that they are all over. In every major city. In most large towns. In every country. To have them be anything else is to go against canon. I don't need anything to explicitly write that there is X or Y dragonborn NPCs in Baldur's Gate for canon to have put them there. Canon is that they are spread throughout the Realms, so my background was canon.

So, @Maxperson, no. You have just made stuff up. Perfectly reasonable stuff. And, frankly, again, it's what we all do. But, that's the point, you had to make it up. It wasn't actually part of the setting. You could have made up exactly the same stuff in any setting and it wouldn't make the slightest difference. Nothing you made actually is part of the setting.

You're stuck on things having to be written in order for it to not be making it up. What is written is that they are spread throughout the Realms, so that is enough for it not to be "making it up" when I say that there are mercenary Dragonborn in Baldur's Gate. It's canon.

 

[Hussar]

You're stuck on things having to be written in order for it to not be making it up. What is written is that they are spread throughout the Realms, so that is enough for it not to be "making it up" when I say that there are mercenary Dragonborn in Baldur's Gate. It's canon.

Not quite. What I am stuck on is that there is zero actual lore to draw on. A "spread throughout the Realms" isn't really lore is it? It's pretty thin and requires you, as the DM or player, to create, pretty much whole cloth any dragonborn communities anywhere in the Realms other than Tymanther.

Which is NOT what I have to do if I choose ANY other base PHB race. And have never had to do for any other base PHB race. Like I said, I chose to be a Thayan priest of Kossuth. I could leverage the existence of a Thayan Enclave in Baldur's Gate, complete with how the enclave is organized and what their day to day business is. Granted, I did have to play a little silly buggers with the dates - the information is from a pretty old source, so, it did need a bit of tweaking. Fine and dandy.

What is the name of the Dragonborn mercenary company in Baldur's Gate? After all, if they have spread everywhere, I should have at the very least a couple of proper nouns.

 

[Maxperson]

Not quite. What I am stuck on is that there is zero actual lore to draw on. A "spread throughout the Realms" isn't really lore is it? It's pretty thin and requires you, as the DM or player, to create, pretty much whole cloth any dragonborn communities anywhere in the Realms other than Tymanther.

It is lore. It's not much. Almost nothing in fact, but it is lore and it informs us on where we can find Dragonborn.

Which is NOT what I have to do if I choose ANY other base PHB race. And have never had to do for any other base PHB race. Like I said, I chose to be a Thayan priest of Kossuth. I could leverage the existence of a Thayan Enclave in Baldur's Gate, complete with how the enclave is organized and what their day to day business is. Granted, I did have to play a little silly buggers with the dates - the information is from a pretty old source, so, it did need a bit of tweaking. Fine and dandy.

What is the name of the Dragonborn mercenary company in Baldur's Gate? After all, if they have spread everywhere, I should have at the very least a couple of proper nouns.

I'd leverage the Flaming Fists if I were playing a Dragonborn in Baldur's Gate and I didn't want to create a different mercenary company. The odds of no Dragonborn being among that company is also 0%. It's a very large mercenary company that doesn't discriminate and Dragonborn are among the finest mercenaries. It has as much or more depth to it than a Thayan enclave.

 

[Corinnguard]

Right. The rules don't say any species are more rare than others. So don't design a setting in a way that forces players to contort their backstories just to play a specific species. Make the setting cosmopolitan and species agnostic. Or at the very least write each species in a way that every choice is a good choice.

What about a city-based setting? They can be cosmopolitan and species agnostic.

 

[Corinnguard]

Yes, there is a Dragonborn culture that arrived in Tymanther from an Abier alternate reality. This culture was recently decimated, but a remnant survives, and a diaspora fled. Sword Coast seems to have significant contact with this diaspora.

At the same time the Dragons who are native to planet Toril can also have reproduced Dragonborn. There might be populous Dragonborn cultures elsewhere on Toril, some of them ancient.

If the Council of Wyrms setting was somewhere on Toril, I could see Io's Blood Isles being the former home of Toril's Dragonborn. This setting could have arose during the Age of Dragons, thus making the Dragonborn culture that lived on the Isles ancient.

And since 5.5e is backwards compatible with 5e, I could also see the 5.5e Dragonborn being native to Toril while the 5e version is from Abeir.