"I don't know much about elementals, I thought we were here for dragon cultists? Anyway. If we need stealth, I might not look it, but I'm sneaky." The goliath offered.
Effectively, they are generic fantasy settings that differ from other dnd worlds on two key points: they don't have decades worth of lore to sift through or weed out for modern sensibilities. And they have guns incorporated into them instead of being highly regulated option things.
Funny about that! We might have something to use as bait, only question is who is going to be crazy enough to try and sneak around a Hydra?
Ok, I think we know Copper's going to try it, but who else?
"A Hydra, huh?" Copper ponders while poking at the dead cultist with a stick, only to be interrupted when one of the fish snap the stick in half. "Maybe we can poor some of these things in there with it and have them eat each other, heh?"
I don't quite care for "Lakefiltrate" cause it seems...
I think the only DnD settings that aren't explicitly directly connected to other settings in some fashion are Eberron and Dark Sun. And even those are more of a "it just extremely hard to get there" thing.
"You're like a fish out of water!" Copper taunts the elf by leveraging his physicality against the shove. A twist here, a hip bump there, and a splash follows the cultist into the drink. "Well, maybe not anymore."
Dexterity Save VS push: 1D20+6 = [14]+6 = 20
"He really isn't going to give up, is he?" Copper quips about the persistent pursuer.
When the cultist lays flat to avoid incoming arrows, he grins as he leaps into action. Jumping across the gap from shore to shore he draws his twin scimitars and furiously pounces upon the unfortunate elf...
Disagree about what? I honestly believe you stopped reading that sentence halfway through.
Liking monster stat blocks because you think they are more fun or whatever is one thing, you can't really "disagree" with templates being easier to future proof.