Dragon 338: Returning to Athas, part1

[Aegeri]

Many of these complaints read as if the individuals in question didn't read what Rich actually wrote and are subsequently making a mountain out of a molehill.

For example:

Like a cell phone in a horror movie: Because of the availability of escape, if I as a DM wanted to instead focus on the problems of Athas, rather than of the sidebar world of the Feywild, and the party wants to escape Athas by use of the Feywild, they're forced to contrive some method to prevent the PC's from accessing it in any way more significant than the mechanics of a teleport or two.

This is absurd and clearly indicates you haven't even read what the Feywild in Dark Sun actually entails, as Rich Baker on his blog puts it:

The Feywild of Athas is dying, however, and it no longer exists as a continuous, parallel plane. It’s a few scattered pockets that don’t connect to each other; journeying from one Feywild locale to another means returning to Athas to make the trek.

I mean how is any of that similar to what you wrote?

1) The Feywild - like Athas - is dying. It's not a safe haven. This inherently destroys any point you've actually made with this, but we'll continue.

2) It is not continuous at all. There may be 'threads' of it behind where you can teleport for extremely short distances, but not enough for any significant travel on the plane.

3) It's just as evil as the Athasian desert and probably worse - given it's actually a more extreme version of the desert. Do you honestly think a PC escaping for a more deadly desert is at all equivalent to what you're saying?

4) We don't even know if Athasian Eladrin can still teleport, the Dark Sun book could well give them another racial power. This wouldn't be unheard of.

Let's also examine that by canon and what Rich Baker wrote:

It’s only a matter of time until the Lands within the Wind cease to exist altogether, and things that were hidden return to the mortal world—but the eladrin hope to stave off that day as long as they can.

Indicates that as the DM, you can choose that day to be immediately and all that Feywild stuff no longer exists and is now stuck properly on Athas. As was indicated by the whole part where the feywild is dying and only isolated pockets are left part.

If that fairly reasonable dispute about a fairly minor point in what looks to be something I'm going to be overall a fan of makes me a hater in someone's mind, I think that poster may need to re-calibrate their Criticism Detector. Because "I think adding the Feywild hurts the feel of Dark Sun" is at least a notch or two below a Helen Thomas-level scandal, though you wouldn't know it from the tone of some of the reactions here.

Now you're perfectly entitled to dislike the feywild and similar in Athas. You can remove Eladrin if you like as well. It would be nice though if you could get the basic facts about how it works in Athas right when you're complaining about it. I think that's why you are seeing so many people breaking their "criticism detectors", it's because what you're criticizing isn't valid to begin with - not that you're criticizing it. You've basically set up something that isn't what Rich Baker wrote the Feywild in Athas is to begin with.

Okay. I paraphrased his quote. I'm sorry - I assumed everyone had read his blog post, in which he said:

You didn't say you "paraphrased" his quote, you did this:

I was looking at Rich Baker's blog, who said, flat out "We need to include Eladrin, as we don't want to alienate the guy that always plays an Eladrin"

And believe it or not "" are in fact quote tags - they aren't fancy BB quote tags but they have the exact same purpose. They are used when you are indicating a direct quote from another person - in this case Rich Baker. The core difference between what you claimed Rich Baker said and what he actually wrote are worlds apart if you even for a moment analyze what you claimed he wrote and what he did in fact write.

This is pure pedantry on my part, but when you're going to butcher what someone else wrote so badly while trying to protest you're being misquoted, the irony is far too much for me not to make a comment.

The actual point here is that they thought they had an element they could choose to exclude or include (one of the core races). They had a logical and well supported way of inserting it into the setting. They did so. In the case of something else like paladins and divine classes before you bring it up, they made a choice not to put in divine classes because they didn't see the need to in a world where the gods were dead. People bought up elemental classes, but the reason elemental clerics were in 2E has simple logic, as demonstated by Rodney Thompson:

We definitely keep the idea of having a big hunk of people in Dark Sun be worshipers of the elements, we just didn't limit that to the divine classes (which, as someone else pointed out, kind of felt like it was a hack to keep the healing coming for 2nd Edition players). Obviously the themes tie into this (so keep an eye out for the next Design & Development column), but the nature of 4E's class structure makes it really easy to cut out an entire power source and still have the adventuring party be 100% functional.

So that is why elemental priest went from being a cleric to a primal power source related theme. There wasn't a justification that could be used or a way of logically integrating divine classes into the setting. At the same time returning to the Eladrin/Feywild part, they had a logical justification and a way of putting in Eladrin into Dark Sun. So they did so.

 

[lukelightning]

I like the "turn to a swirl of sand" effect for fey step. A cool-looking teleport without resorting to planar travel.

As for tieflings and dragonborn, they seem very Darksunny to me.

 

[The Little Raven]

A Sidebar World

More like a "sidebar city," since it was directly stated that it's really, really small...

As Moridin said earlier...

for example, in the DSCS we say something along the lines that the amount of Feywild left in existence could fit inside the walls of Tyr

A Known Quantity

Nothing in official books makes Fey Step move you into the Feywild.

Even at .1%.

The total Feywild fragments put together fit inside Tyr. Those fragments are scattered over a planet. I think you're making a mountain out of what would be a molehill if it wasn't scattered over the entire world.

It would be a desirable place to travel to

You keep saying that.

no sorcerer-kings ruling over you

That a fact?

protective psionic eladrin

Who says they'll protect someone who wants to crash their pajama party or whatever you assume the Feywild fragments are like? Protective does not equal friendly.

no harsh sun

So, the sun ceases to exist there? Or ceases to reflect the sun of the world?

no harsh weather

So, no weather either?

no raiding groups of barbarians

If the Feywild is the happy, shiny pool party you claim, then why wouldn't it be under constant assault by barbarians?

Like a cell phone in a horror movie

This is weaker than a house of cards. Your conclusions are based on false assumptions. You keep claiming Fey Step puts you in the Feywild, which is nowhere to be found in the rules themselves, only in preview books and articles that contain tons of outdated information. You keep acting like it's some world or something you can go hang out in, when in fact, most fragments would be the size of a cave or oasis given the size we've been told. You act like it's some friendly wonderful place, when it's the hypermagical reflection of the world that wants to eat you. You seem to be ignoring every actual fact we've been given about it and substituting wild speculation in its place.

 

[Obryn]

Because I trust you, Obryn....

• A Sidebar World: The feywild is another plane of existence. It's not Athas. It's somewhere else. So it is its own place, alongside the place of the Dark Sun campaign setting. It's somewhere else to go, with its own factions and threats and problems. It's not part and parcel of the setting, it is beside the setting. It doesn't have sorcerer-kings. It doesn't have half-giants. It doesn't have kanks. Or maybe it has super-powered magi-kanks. Either way, it's not part and parcel of the setting, but alongside it.

• 
  I'd add, "...unless it's done in such a way that it becomes part and parcel to the setting, and makes for a cool addition to Athas." Athas got invaded by Githyanki. I'm okay with it having had magic-hating eladrin just on the other side of a thin, magical veil.
  
  

  [*] A Known Quantity: Anything the PC's use becomes something of a known quantity. If an eladrin PC teleports through the Feywild once per encounter, he's doing it 2-3 times per session, over and over again, over the course of every encounter in the entire campaign. It becomes something of a trusted tool, that obeys some rules very familiar to at least that PC, and, via that PC, the entire party. It's also true that it is a known quantity of the back-story of any Eladrin PC, making it at least a tangential element of one character's practical knowledge.
  [*] Usable by the PC's: Again, the blink elf teleport. Which is part of why one of my own ideas for using eladrin in Athas that I gave above (because, as will be familiar to those reading my posts, I don't think that's really a bad idea) was to refluff it as a bralani-style whirlwind. This keeps eladrin with essentially the same ability (maybe they can't go through walls?), but doesn't use another plane to achieve the effect. Bralani exist already in 4e, so this wouldn't even be out-of-product-identity territory for the eladrin.

  I have to confess some confusion here. It seems like in both cases, your issue is rooted in Fey Step. I don't think Fey Step has a built-in cosmological justification, with hopping into the feywild and then back. Regardless, it's never a refuge, and never more than instantaneous.
  
  It seems like you're bringing your own non-mechanical baggage into this, mostly hinging on fey step itself. Heck; Fey Step isn't even specifically an arcane effect - it could just as easily be a psionic or primal one.
  
  

  [*] Available for Escape from Athas: If it's a place you can travel to for short periods, or in background material, it's a place you should be able to travel to for long periods, in play. Even at .1%. It would be a desirable place to travel to (no sorcerer-kings ruling over you, protective psionic eladrin, no harsh sun, no harsh weather, no raiding groups of barbarians). Thus, it would be the goal of many characters aware of it. Any group with an eladrin PC is going to be aware of it, because such a PC makes frequent use of it, and likely includes it to some degree in their back-story. Such a group is more likely to want to use this to get out of this horrible place, into some place a little less horrible. It's certainly not inevitable, but I imagine the eladrin characters that the party interacts with that are totally OK with not being in the feywild would be a minority.

  I'd say it sounds no friendlier than the Forest Ridge. I mean, talk about a desirable place - abundant water and food, and I'm sure halfling PCs are aware of it. Oh, except for the fact that it's inhabited by incredibly hostile cannibals and dangerous flora and fauna... which is, coincidentally, exactly what we're being led to expect out of an Athasian Feywild. The Eladrin over there don't sound friendly, or keen on visitors.
  
  

  [*] Like a cell phone in a horror movie: Because of the availability of escape, if I as a DM wanted to instead focus on the problems of Athas, rather than of the sidebar world of the Feywild, and the party wants to escape Athas by use of the Feywild, they're forced to contrive some method to prevent the PC's from accessing it in any way more significant than the mechanics of a teleport or two.

  Basically, see everything above... I think you have some misconceptions here, from your own interpretations of the Feywild and Eladrin, which I don't think are valid for an Athasian variation of it.
  
  

  If that fairly reasonable dispute about a fairly minor point in what looks to be something I'm going to be overall a fan of makes me a hater in someone's mind, I think that poster may need to re-calibrate their Criticism Detector. Because "I think adding the Feywild hurts the feel of Dark Sun" is at least a notch or two below a Helen Thomas-level scandal, though you wouldn't know it from the tone of some of the reactions here.

  No, I think it's reasonable to ask questions about it, but to be frank, it feels like you're reading an entirely different body of work than I am. Like, we're both reading the same blog post and somehow coming away with entirely different ideas and conclusions.
  
  -O

 

[Aegeri]

Stepping through the feywild with feystep actually is merely a fluff based thing and has no mechanical basis in the rules at all. You can in fact use feystep in the middle of the elemental chaos - which has utterly no feywild to speak of. Fluff =/ mechanics. There is no reason to assume feystep requires the feywild to function in Dark Sun. They can explain how it functions in any number of ways that do not require it.

Teleportation doesn't even require travel through another plane at all anyway.

 

[keterys]

Actually, to set this argument to rest, WotC has just posted a picture of the Athasian Feywild.
[sblock]

(Found here)[/sblock]

 

[fanboy2000]

Nothing in official books makes Fey Step move you into the Feywild.

True. Some of this discussion sounds like people piling fanon on fanon. If fanon can be applied to RPGs. (Though if it can, I suspect it would definitely apply to D&D)

First is that Athas is unconnected to the other planes. Second is that when an eladrin teleports, it does so using the Feywild. While these assumptions aren't unreasonable, I think it's important to understand that not all players and DMs use them. (Though I do use them. For example, in my campaign right now, eladrin do use the Feywild to teleport.)

Anyways, I think that from a fluff perspective any magic, sufficiently advanced, is indistinguishable from psionics. At least where Athas is concerned.

 

[mkill]

Ok everyone, even though there seems to be agreement on both sides that this is a minor issue, we're on page 7 now. I think everything has been said on this particular topic.

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There is one thing that bugs me, though, and I know I will regret asking.

What about Wilden on Athas?

 

[Merlin the Tuna]

The Eladrin over there don't sound friendly, or keen on visitors.

Yeah, this is where I really don't understand where KM is coming from.

So you had a bunch of sorcerers who thought that magic was cool and maybe someday they could use a bunch of magic to turn into giant dragons or something. In doing so, they suck the Feywild dry of life. But that's not enough, so they suck Athas dry of life. And even after seeing the world around them go to hell in a handbasket, they keep going and end up flat out obliterating most of the Feywild, to the point that there is no going back ever because the place is just nonexistent.

If I'm an Eladrin living in my wonderful magical city cradled between bubbling streams in a mystical orchard, I'm pissed when some idiot's spells kill the orchard and dry up the streams. As even a novice arcanist, I'm even more pissed when the moron doesn't get the point and does the same thing to his own backyard. And when he vaporizes the ground I lived on and my family with it to? I'm not likely to feel hospitable towards any other dunderheaded outsiders.

Given the story that's been put forth by the designers, seeing an Eladrin should call for a decisive slam on the "Oh ****!" button, whether you're in Athas or Feywild -- they're out for the blood of the outsiders that annihilated their homelands (which similarly cannot support visitors), and they very literally have nothing left to lose. Frankly, as far as I can tell the most likely occupation of an Eladrin in 4E Athas is going to be either assassin or magical/psionic suicide bomber.

The Feywild isn't a place to kick back and down a beer even in regular old Points-Of-Light-Land; I especially don't get where you're getting this "It's a vacation from Athas" idea.

 

[Mouseferatu]

Ok everyone, even though there seems to be agreement on both sides that this is a minor issue, we're on page 7 now.

Which is why some people have trouble accepting it when some other people in this thread have said "This is a minor issue for me."

At this point, the mountain that's been made of this so-called "molehill" is big enough to plug the BP oil leak.