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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Shemeska" data-source="post: 4611144" data-attributes="member: 11697">It was a failure in execution, but a failure on a lesser lever for not having a concept that really made it stand out from other planar cities. It truly came off as trying to be Sigil, without being Sigil, but being better and EPIC.Union suffered by comparison to Sigil. Sigil connected everywhere, had the factions, representatives of planar powers, many of the most wealthy individuals across the planes living there, and an enigmatic entity that prevented the city from becoming the overt battleground of gods and fiendish armies. Union pretty much had an epic level plastic clown holding up its hand and the sign "You must be 21st level or higher to ride this epic ride".Union tried to one up every other planar city out there, and it really suffered by comparison to such places as Sigil, the City of Brass, Grenpoli, Dis, Tradegate, Tu'narath, and others. And it didn't have the presence of any of the major groups or persons that likewise gave those cities some stability and reason for continued existance. Union had mercanes, and a bunch of groups with zero prior history that were presented as suddenly being the bestest and better than anything else ever and EPIC! Doesn't come off well.Union could be salvaged, but it would need to really take an author looking at it and addressing it on a core level to find a niche that didn't involve the word "Epic" at any point. They'd need to make it fit rationally into the fabric of the planes and prior history of the planes (which 3.x Union made no attempt to do) and they'd need some reason for continued defense beyond mercanes and a sense of 'if we build a demiplane and only let in Epic heroes which sure will flock to us, those Epic heroes will defend us from the fiendish armies that will otherwise turn us the place into a smoking wasteland if the demiplane truly had enough unique traits to attract those Epic people in the first place."Several years back I speculated with Rip and some others on the WotC boards about how to save the place (the thread since scrubbed in one of the crashes over there, or the Gleemax era forum deletions and mass merges). Perhaps the demiplane existed prior to the mercane's finding it and claiming it as their own creation, and something else really pulls the strings, perhaps like a twist on Neth or Nimicri. Perhaps the mercane serve as the intermediaries for a cabal of draconic sorcerers or a proxy of a draconic deity of wealth. Etc.Suffice to say, Union needed a revamp if it wanted to shed the disdain it generally received when it came out.</blockquote>

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