Recent content by Mustrum_Ridcully

I think one of the very important aspects is that the culture must also be somewhat relevant or useful for a game. A complex Elven culture in an area far off the main locations of interest is of limited use when you play an Elf. It might inform some of your preconceived notions ,but you aren't...

It seems you're focusing a bit too much on the specific example. It's about: "Hey, this is a place and role this PHB core species can be found in and has a relevant contribution to the adventure locations of that setting that you can use to find something to base your character of one of those...

The goal is not to haev something that you can write yourself. I think that's also an important part of any setting, that it leaves rooms for the players and GMs to expand and tell their own stories. And Forgotten Realms might have large holes - but the problem is, it also has a rich story, so...

Not a kitchen sink setting. A setting that accounts for the PHB core races and classes. That also doesn't have to be its only defining feature, just like Eberron's only defining feature isn't that it fits the 3E Core Rules on what races and classes exist, or how magic items can be created by...

Dragonborns were in the original PoL setting. But the Goliaths came in PHB 2, but that means they are not as well-integrated in the story as Dragonborn, Tiefling or even Halflings. (And the lore basically is: They are usually isolated, living underground, hostile to Giants that often enslave...

Crashing a nation into a setting is pretty disruptive, and I can see why many long-term Forgotton Realms fans didn't like it. But it has the advantage that the nation itself still has a history and culture, and you now have an entirely new group of people into the setting, that had their old...

I am not sure, you really don't understand me, apparently. If I say it matters to me that the core species is an integrated part of this the setting, I really mean that. It is important to me. And it's not important to me that every monster appearing in an adventure is also equally strong...

A core player species is not the same as a monster. The monster can be an oddball and exist only for this adventure, maybe being a creation by the villains, result of an arcane mystery, dimensional breach, curse or whatever. Maybe the Medusa in this adventure is the Medusa, not a Medusa, because...

Why do you think it's required that the nations need to only make sense for a 5E setting? You seem to be misunderstanding the goals. The goal is that each of these nations holds a place for the core races of the 5E setting. A 4E could for examle include Goliaths, but they aren't a PHB 1 species...

I don't think every race needs a single nation just for themselves. It depends on your preference if they even start all out as "racist" nations - quite possibly they didn't, nations only forming after the different ancestries were already found all over the world, but maybe that's where they...

No, they just wanted to create a new setting that used all the 3rd Edition conceits and ideas, and that didn't stop it from adding stuff that definitely went beyond the core 3rd Edition rules, like Warforged, Changlings, Shifters, Kalashtar, Artificers and son on. It was really supposed to be a...

Yeah, that would be also something I wish could be represented better in D&D. I am not even sure that Clerics and Paladins should only worship one god, or that every god has their own Clerics and Paladins. More fitting might be that Clerics and Paladins are priests related to gods that...

As it happens, just now I am playing around with the Worldographer again to prepare a bit for a Diamond Throne campaign, converting the map from the 3.x book into a hex map...

Hah! Reminds me when we were making the German equivalent of something like a "High School News Paper" (Abizeitung) and we had a poem called "In the Looking Glass" and intentionally mirrored it (crazy what was possible with the Mac publishing software we ha in the 90s already). But when we got...

I seem to remember 4E also used a lot of pre-existing gods, didn't it? If it works, it works. I don't agree with the appraoch to making the gods linked to classes, though. Doesn't inspire me, not how I would do it. I might use it as inspiration to have each class list 3 deities its members...