D&D 5E Does it seem like Nerath was dropped like a bad habit?

[doctorhook]

It's a shame that 4E is such a pariah among editions, because it really did contribute and innovate D&D in some great ways: the Points of Light/Ruins of Nerath setting, the World-Axis cosmology, and the simplified default pantheon are all great examples.

 

[sunrisekid]

It's a shame that 4E is such a pariah among editions, because it really did contribute and innovate D&D in some great ways: the Points of Light/Ruins of Nerath setting, the World-Axis cosmology, and the simplified default pantheon are all great examples.

I completely agree with you on these. Personally, I plan on continuing to use them through 5E (HotDQ withstanding) as I've built up quite a lot of "imaginitive capital", if you know what I mean, from my last few years with 4E. My players know all the references, we have a ton of in-jokes about stuff related to the Nerath world, etc.

 

[Scrivener of Doom]

Have another look - it's there, as is Neverwinter Campaign Setting.

It just isn't hyperlinked because the PDF isn't out yet on dndclassics.com

Cheers!

It wasn't when the site first went live which is what I am referring to.

Ditto for the Neverwinter Campaign Setting which surprised me even more because it has a tonne of great material that can be used to expand Lost Mine of Phandelver.

 

[I'm A Banana]

I think the reasoning for this is less "pretend 4e didn't happen" and more WotC's insistence that Nerath isn't actually a distinct D&D setting but rather just "the" D&D World.

So, from the standpoint of a fan, the Nentir Vale and Nerath and all its associated proper nouns and cosmologies and histories and events are absolutely a distinct, different, unique, D&D setting. It's among the pantheon of Basic Fantasy Settings -- Greyhawk, Forgotten Realms, Dragonlance, and now Nerath.

But 4e took pains to articulate that Nerath = D&D. It wasn't that Nerath had a sucking Abyss at the center of an Elemental Chaos, it was that D&D had a sucking Abyss at the center of an Elemental Chaos. It wasn't that Nerath was a world of points of light in the darkness, it was that D&D was a world of points of light in the darkness. It was part of 4e's eager desire to re-define and re-brand everything that it had One True World and every product written in 4e outside of specific campaign settings was about this One True World which was also definitive of D&D. And even the 4e campaign settings couldn't escape it entirely: Dark Sun has a Feywild and Returned Abeir brought the dragonborn, because they are D&D worlds and D&D worlds in 4e all had Feywild and dragonborn because they were just variations on Nerath.

The reasoning for this re-definition is, I imagine, deep within the re-branding efforts that caused 4e to re-define a lot of things. But the fact that this was how Nerath was billed originally makes it hard to disentangle from "default D&D."

I just think they haven't quite figured out how to present the world in a way that isn't "default D&D" yet.

Like, if you look at the worlds of D&D, they all have kind of unique selling points -- FR is all about the history and magic of the place, the intense and dramatic events. Dragonlance has the defining epic adventure of D&D at its heart. Greyhawk is a bloody Swords & Sorcery world of wars and kingdoms in conflict. Nerath....you could maybe highlight the "points of light" aspect or the cosmology or something, but it's a little harder to disentangle from Any Random D&D World. And their efforts haven't been focused there quite yet. It looks like bits of Nerath are making it into 5e's game as options (Turathi tieflings, dragonborn, etc.), not as a cohesive whole.

I bet that one of the most useful things you can do to get WotC to pay attention to Nerath again is to actively continue fan support of the setting yourself. Get together a community of folks who totally dig Nerath and who want to catalogue its information and develop rules in 5e for things that were unique to it (like elemental demons!). If there looks to be a demand for it, I'm sure it'll go a few pegs up WotC's concern-o-meter.

For me personally, I think I'll like Nerath a lot better as a distinct D&D setting than I did as the One True D&D setting, so I'd be interested to see what big fans of the setting might produce that make it stand out from the DL/GH/FR crowd. The first thing I'd like to hear is "Why would I play in Nerath instead of in any other setting?"

 

[Mercurius]

Folks have already said it, that Nerath was more of Generic D&D World than a distinct setting. Even that board game map had regions named aftered iconic adventures from 1E lore.

The said part is that with the Nentir Vale Gazetteer we were finally going to get a sense of the flavor of the place and see at least the Nentir Vale fleshed out, but alas, it wasn't to be.

Anyhow, isn't "Nerath" simply the region that Nentir Vale was in? There wasn't actually a name for the world, afair.

 

[billd91]

Right now, I suspect the WotC team are trying to pretend 4E never happened and Nerath is a casualty of that.

I doubt it. They might be letting it lie low for a while so they can try to reattract lapsed D&D customers by focusing on the classics, but if they liked it when they were working on it in the 4e timeframe, it will make its reappearance.

 

[Mark CMG]

(. . .) and it's ripe for a GM to use that Points of Light idea that 4th edition brought to us.

Just as a point of interest, WotC tacked on the name Points of Light but this is an old concept in RPGing. It is, in part, why they originally called adventures "modules." I like the idea that WotC might be working up some mini-settings that can be dropped into any of their larger settings. It certainly would make those products more widely useful, though they'd ultimately sink or swim based on their overall quality as they would if their own setting or cobbled onto any particular other setting.

Plus, we have that cool Conquest of Nerath board game that no longer has any connection to the rest of DnD.

I enjoyed this game the two times I got to play it. In fact, I think all of the WotC D&D-themed board/games, especially Lords of Waterdeep, are pretty solid.

 

[Scrivener of Doom]

I doubt it. They might be letting it lie low for a while so they can try to reattract lapsed D&D customers by focusing on the classics, but if they liked it when they were working on it in the 4e timeframe, it will make its reappearance.

That's essentially what I said but from a different perspective. I love 4E - it's the game I still run - but it's clearly unpopular. It probably makes sense to minimise its overt influences on 5E.

 

[Kobold Avenger]

Nerath was something very divisive, mainly because many of it's aspects like the world axis and the "points of lights" themes was forced into every other campaign setting they tried to present. It's a good idea that it lays low.

 

[tuxgeo]

. . . Anyhow, isn't "Nerath" simply the region that Nentir Vale was in? There wasn't actually a name for the world, afair.

Pretty much this.
"Nerath" was the name of the fallen empire that had its capital at Nera, which was located just southwest of the mouth of the Nentir river.

If you look at the "Conquest of Nerath" boardgame map, the Nentir River flows south through the "Barony of Therund" gaming location, then south into the "Nera" gaming location, in which the Nentir river turns east-by-southeast and flows out into the oceanic gaming location of "Nera Bay."

The four overarching regions of the board are "Nerath" in the upper left, "Karkoth" in the upper right, "Iron Circle" in the lower left, and "Vailin" in the lower right. (To me, that indicates that what you said is true: Nerath is the Nentir Vale and surrounding areas.)