Alright WotC, fess up...who came up with "Emerald Frost"?

[lukelightning]

Everyone keeps calling the proper names in the article "cheesy", but seriously, what would examples of non-cheesy fantasy monikers be?

I have no problem with cheesy names. They are descriptive and easy to remember and they tend to be up0front about their cheesiness, where as other naming conventions might look fine at first but after you say it a few times you realize they sound terrible.

I harken from a bygone age when we adventured in the Dungeons of Doom and the Forests of Eternal Doom and Demon Dragon of Death Mountain and we loved it.

 

[lukelightning]

Mixing Cold and Acid is a really weird combo anyway. One freezes you up, the other dissolves you. Sound pretty antagonistic to me.

What's wrong with that? They are united by the theme of solidification-liquifying. It's like if you grouped fire and cold together under the theme of temperature control. Heck, you could add wind in there and have the Obsidian HVAC tradition...

 

[Patryn of Elvenshae]

You can look at fire and ice as expressions of energy, sure, but they're two very specific (and otherwise unrelated) subsets of energy-related phenomena. And they just sound really dumb as the central themes of a magical tradition.

 

[lukelightning]

Can you name one published setting (D&D or otherwise) that uses Thor in it?

Besides, including Thor would implicate Scandinavians and Vikings and all that stuff which might not fit in a game. Yeah, I know Tiamat is Babylonian but the D&D Tiamat has virtually nothing in common with the mythological one other than being reptilianish and very dangerous. Since Tiamat is relatively obscure most people don't already have an impression of what Tiamat is outside of the D&D version, so writers can easily do their own take on her.

With Thor, lots of people know about Thor and have their own interpretation and idea of him. So designing Thor and deciding to leave out his magic goats (tee hee) or girdle (snicker) might annoy people, and deciding that he uses a trident would really bug folks.

And then there is the can of worms. If Thor, why not Vishnu? Why not Yahweh?

 

[lukelightning]

And they just sound really dumb as the central themes of a magical tradition.

I tend to dislike arcane traditions centered on overt energies. Why would Zaron the wizard lock himself into focusing on something as mundane as "fire" instead of the secret energies that are behind fire. Let the easily-impressed clerics and druids focus on manifestations, wizards go for the rarified energies behind the energies.

 

[blargney the second]

Can you name one published setting (D&D or otherwise) that uses Thor in it?

Order of the Stick.

 

[Lonely Tylenol]

You can look at fire and ice as expressions of energy, sure, but they're two very specific (and otherwise unrelated) subsets of energy-related phenomena. And they just sound really dumb as the central themes of a magical tradition.

I agree with this. While I don't have any problem with combining acid and cold as vectors for magical damage, I don't really think that the concept of energy types in general makes for a good basis for a paradigm approach to the study of thaumaturgy.

 

[rounser]

Can you name one published setting (D&D or otherwise) that uses Thor in it? I can, but I'm sure Mystara is a bit of an obscure reference. Greyhawk? No. Realms? Tyr, but no Thor. Eberron? Nope. Birthright, Ravenloft, Dragonlance, Scarred Land, Aerth, Wilderlands, Blackmoor, Kalamar? No. I guess Planescape, but thats really not fair...

And what gods do these settings share in common? Lolth. Some demihuman gods. That's it.
Thor is in the Deities and Demigods from 1st ed. 12 year old gamers might go slay Zeus, in 1st ed, and if you were running a setting-lite game, you could just pick a bunch of deities from that book and call it a day. Maybe you didn't have those experiences. Earth pantheon gods are "generic" because they fit in any old D&D world as much as they do another, and everyone knows them already.

Their comes a time when you ask when has something stopped being specific to a setting and starts becoming generic. Venca's artifacts were in the 1e DMG, but they were pretty Greyhawk specific (heck, all the artifacts were GH specific). Planescapes's tieflings made it into 3e's Monster Manual. Orcus is pretty specific a name, as is Tiamat, but those names pop up repeatedly in D&D generic books. At this point, Mordenkainen, Vecna, Tiamat, and Orcus have been around long enough that they are linked to D&D no matter what the world. You can remove them if they offend you, but to remove them from the core would be a great diservice to new players and make the world seem more toolkit than default, change to taste. I'd rather the latter, IMHO.

I agree about the existence of a "D&D mythology", including stuff like that and the origin of the mind flayers with regard to githyanki, etc. But at the same time we need to make sure that crap doesn't get added to the core in some place where it can't be ignored in the same way you could an aesthetically tasteless monster or poorly conceived spell. Few would object to Vecna turning up wherever; many would object to some wizard club with a lame name turning up everywhere. And for every Vecna or Rod of Seven Parts which hit a chord there are many other artifacts and parts of the D&D mythology and implied setting which everyone ignored because they were lame (C.I.F.A.L.s, anyone?)

Iron Sigil and Emerald Frost might well be the latter. They don't sound like they have the "mythic resonance" of Tiamat in the least. They sound cheesey, and like something created as a result of crunch support rather than being an aesthetically good idea. This "crunch first, flavour afterthought" didn't generate good flavour in 3E, and I don't see that changing much in 4E. The wizard implements is good crunch and good flavour; this doesn't look like it's got the balance right in the same way that seems to.

 

[Exen Trik]

I agree with this. While I don't have any problem with combining acid and cold as vectors for magical damage, I don't really think that the concept of energy types in general makes for a good basis for a paradigm approach to the study of thaumaturgy.

I agree completely. Acid doesn't come up much in the natural or fantasy worlds, and it's not like acid rain is a problem. But there is some relation between acid and swamps, so there is some connection with water there. But swamps are warm and inland, as opposed to the cold of ice you would find in snowy climates or at sea.

On the other hand, if you interpret acid damage as instead the concentrated effects of salt and combine that with cold of glaciers and such, then you can get away with an ocean theme. It still wouldn't justify an acid arrow spell, but you could still be very dangerous to metallic constructs and dire snails.