Covers Preview for Elemental Evil Adventurer's Handbook and Princes of the Apocalypse!

So, it's official now. The Elder Elemental Eye has been somehow released from The World of Greyhawk to unleash havoc in the Realms. No fantasy world was described in more detail than the Forgotten Realms, and they still manage to produce not one, but two storylines in a row with themes and antagonists that have nothing to do with the Realms. Good job, Wizards.

 

[SirAntoine]

You can be funny.

 

[gweinel]

It is interesting that they have created a ton of Realm Lore through setting products, books, comics, pc games, etc and they used nothing of it. They just grabbed elemental evil from greyhawk and the dragon queen - the archvillain - from dragonlance and put em in the realms. I can see the logic in their decision (eclectism) but i find it a poor choice with a result to annoy the fans of dragonlance and greyhawk. Someone would say that Wizards weren't satisfied enough with the lore of the realms and borrowed from elsewhere.

 

[Henry]

Are the adventures FR stories? Yes, yes they are. The fact is that running them in Krynn would feel utterly wrong. Even running them in Greyhawk would feel wrong to me (and most of my home games in the last 20 years have been set there). And the reason that they are Realms stories is because they take advantage of the characters and societies of the Realms.


Cheers!

Maybe I just need to get and read the tyranny of Dragons books, but according to reviews:
[sblock]it's the Cult of the Dragon trying to help Tiamat win? Thing is, they've never been associated with Tiamat before, they've always been focused on making all dragons Dracoliches, and when they lost Sammaster they even picked up a Dracolich as their leader. Switching allegiances to Tiamat just makes no sense to me; plus, Ed's written about Tiamat before, but she's made almost no impact in FR products before. Reading several reviews, it just feels so shoehorned to me.[/sblock]

 

[MerricB]

Maybe I just need to get and read the tyranny of Dragons books, but according to reviews:
[sblock]it's the Cult of the Dragon trying to help Tiamat win? Thing is, they've never been associated with Tiamat before, they've always been focused on making all dragons Dracoliches, and when they lost Sammaster they even picked up a Dracolich as their leader. Switching allegiances to Tiamat just makes no sense to me; plus, Ed's written about Tiamat before, but she's made almost no impact in FR products before. Reading several reviews, it just feels so shoehorned to me.[/sblock]

The reason I like it so much is because it's brilliant - the reasoning behind it works really well.

[sblock]The Cult of the Dragon was always based on an erroneous reading of a prophecy. The relevant passage is generally translated:

"naught will be left save shuttered thrones with no rulers but the dead. Dragons shall rule the world entire"

except by the cult, which has it as:

"naught will be left save shuttered thrones with no rulers. But the dead dragons shall rule the world entire"

So, Dracoliches. And thus the Cult has continued for the past several hundred years.

Tyranny of Dragons has one of the rising stars of the cult think, "Hang on, this isn't working - we raise these dracoliches, and things still go wrong", so he goes back to the prophecy, and realises that perhaps the cult's founder had it wrong. He's a charismatic chap, and he manages to persuade a bunch of other cultists that perhaps they should be helping living dragons rule and not the dead ones. And Tiamat notices him and starts offering help, in particular, the five masks of the dragon.

And so, with these major artifacts, he gets even more of the cult under his control, and starts planning the dominion of dragons, which will culminate with the release of Tiamat from the Nine Hells. The adventure talks about her being imprisoned there, which actually fits not that badly - as you said, it's not like she's been very active on Faerun - but as I like gods having real trouble coming to the Prime Material Plane, it works fine with me in any case.

What's really nice about the adventures is that although the new cult leader has most of the cult going with him, there are a number of old-timers who think he's nuts and want to go back to the good old days of making dracoliches![/sblock]

Cheers!

 

[Scrivener of Doom]

Actually, the Cult of the Dragon deciding to embrace Tiamat is not an issue with Realmslore -there have been hints before about Tiamat wanting to get control of the Cult - but the issue is that Tiamat is suddenly a prisoner in the hells and needs to be freed. Now that's out of the blue and unrelated to - and even contradicts - existing Realmslore.

But I get it. It has lots of dragons and this is D&D. And Tiamat is a popular BBEG who has has featured in at least three editions, one that was botched (4E's pseudo-adventure path Scales of War), one that has a lot of nostalgia attached (Dragonlance... oh, and those horrid cartoons), and one that was genuinely well done (Red Hand of Doom).

 

[Henry]

I get what you're saying, [MENTION=3586]MerricB[/MENTION] . It just feels a bit too artificial to me, given the dozens of other Realms-specific villains available, but I can definitely agree it's consistent enough.

It's almost like someone bringing out Camazotz The Bat God as a main Greyhawk villain for a major story arc because he was referenced one time in module C1, ignoring Iuz, Rary, the Scarlet Brotherhood, and Iggwilv as major threats. (or, more like having to ally with Iuz because Camazotz is the bigger threat.) Some might find it works, but I'm like, why ignore the low hanging apples to go for the wispy little one at the top?

 

[SirAntoine]

It's also a low level adventure.

 

[Sailor Moon]

The reason I like it so much is because it's brilliant - the reasoning behind it works really well.

[sblock]The Cult of the Dragon was always based on an erroneous reading of a prophecy. The relevant passage is generally translated:

"naught will be left save shuttered thrones with no rulers but the dead. Dragons shall rule the world entire"

except by the cult, which has it as:

"naught will be left save shuttered thrones with no rulers. But the dead dragons shall rule the world entire"

So, Dracoliches. And thus the Cult has continued for the past several hundred years.

Tyranny of Dragons has one of the rising stars of the cult think, "Hang on, this isn't working - we raise these dracoliches, and things still go wrong", so he goes back to the prophecy, and realises that perhaps the cult's founder had it wrong. He's a charismatic chap, and he manages to persuade a bunch of other cultists that perhaps they should be helping living dragons rule and not the dead ones. And Tiamat notices him and starts offering help, in particular, the five masks of the dragon.

And so, with these major artifacts, he gets even more of the cult under his control, and starts planning the dominion of dragons, which will culminate with the release of Tiamat from the Nine Hells. The adventure talks about her being imprisoned there, which actually fits not that badly - as you said, it's not like she's been very active on Faerun - but as I like gods having real trouble coming to the Prime Material Plane, it works fine with me in any case.

What's really nice about the adventures is that although the new cult leader has most of the cult going with him, there are a number of old-timers who think he's nuts and want to go back to the good old days of making dracoliches![/sblock]

Cheers!

What reasoning?

You have a goddess that was never trapped but suddenly is. Also, while Tiamat is interested in the Cult, most of it's members are not and the Dark Queen's plans were thwarted left and right. So now suddenly the Cult of the Dragon has open arms for her without any write up to the lead up of this event.

It's way too forced and frankly cheapens the Realms.

 

[DEFCON 1]

What reasoning?

You have a goddess that was never trapped but suddenly is. Also, while Tiamat is interested in the Cult, most of it's members are not and the Dark Queen's plans were thwarted left and right. So now suddenly the Cult of the Dragon has open arms for her without any write up to the lead up of this event.

It's way too forced and frankly cheapens the Realms.

A couple things on this score...

I'm not up on Realmslore for the most part, but was Tiamat ever referenced in any of the 4E Realms products? Because if she wasn't... then the idea that she was never trapped but then "suddenly" was... could be called into question since we'd have no way of knowing what happened to her in the 100 year jump. For all we know... her capture and imprisonment had a century to occur and did.

As for the second point... I know it won't matter much to those of you who don't play in any of the Encounters, Expeditions, or Epics adventures through the Adventurer's League... but in fact the first Epic, Corruption In Kryptgarden, does reference the both side of the Cult of the Dragon, the old dracolich contingent and the new Tiamat contingent-- and that both sides of the Cult are in conflict in trying to push their agenda through the adventure.

So truth be told, the Cult hasn't actually done a complete 180, its more that a newer wing of the Cult had decided that the whole dracolich thing wasn't working or successful, and which is why they were advancing a new cause. Granted, if none of you play those adventures, all that lore and backstory is generally lost... at least until a new FR setting book gets written and the section on the Cult goes into it.

 

[Mirtek]

I'm not up on Realmslore for the most part, but was Tiamat ever referenced in any of the 4E Realms products? Because if she wasn't... then the idea that she was never trapped but then "suddenly" was... could be called into question since we'd have no way of knowing what happened to her in the 100 year jump. For all we know... her capture and imprisonment had a century to occur and did.

She was referenced and resided on Banehold (moving there from her former lair in Dragon Eyrie where she moved from her older realm in Hell) as of the 1470s.

In the latest Brimstone Angels novel we learn that she has recently moved back to Avernus, but no word of her being traped. So by mid 1480s she's back in hell but not a prisoner yet (a group of powerful devils working at behest of Glasya and Asmodeus still have to pay her to be allowed passage through her realm in hell). Even if she already were a prisoner that makes her imprisonment only a couple of years long, not centuries