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Message: <blockquote data-quote="JohnSnow" data-source="post: 3876597" data-attributes="member: 32164">Simple. Because there are records in the world of what life was like before the Sundering. People in the setting are aware that this sort of thing used to be possible. They've even got old gods that just don't answer prayers anymore.There's even an implication that one "big story" to tell in the setting is to undo the Sundering or moderate its effects some how. For instance, the Witch Queen (who's an 8,000 year-old elf) might be capable of being elevated to divine status - giving Aeryth a goddess to counterpoint the dark god. Or maybe an epic adventure to bring a couple more outsiders down to counterbalance Izzy's evil. Or maybe you could restore access to the Ethereal plane. All of these things are put there as potential plothooks for a DM.The book also goes into a fair amount of detail explaining the differences between Midnight and a typical D&D setting because it's targeted at people who are used to standard D&D. Any setting book does that. They have to explain the ways in which the setting deviates from the Core Rules. Midnight introduces new classes, a new method for casting magic, and lots of other new rules. But it still uses the D&D spell list. Not all of it, but the D&D spell list is key to the game. They disallowed certain spells that didn't fit the setting and they gave an in-setting rationale for that decision. Choosing that in-setting rationale led to some other implications, and the resulting flavor makes for a very compelling setting. I have no problem with a design process that goes:1) We want a setting like Middle-Earth if Sauron won. 2) That means we need a dark god on "earth" and no way for other gods to interfere.3) We also want to disallow certain D&Disms, like planar travel and teleport.4) There's a lot of problematic spells on the Cleric list.5) Hey, what if the dark god was cast down to the Prime and sundered it from the other planes as his revenge, cutting it off from the other gods in the process? 6) That would mean no cleric spells and no spells that rely on the other planes.7) Hey, that would mean spirits are stuck on the Prime.8) etc.And I have a feeling that that's how the setting evolved to what it is. No, but when it WAS the case, it used to have a LONG discussion about what happened to the gods and why there were no clerics in the setting. And don't even get me started on the different orders of High Sorcery.That's because when you change races, people go "eh." When you restrict the available classes or change fundamental rules systems (like magic), you have to explain why. Like defiling magic in Dark Sun, for example.I get the impression that you don't like Midnight. Fine. But that's no reason to trash it for reasons that make perfect sense to people who do.</blockquote>

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