Dragon 338: Returning to Athas, part1

[Wik]

I don't think a devastated Feywild detracts from Dark Sun, the way the Lost Sea or a City State ruled by a Good Sorcerer King who's a Preserver aiming to become an Avangion detracts from Dark Sun.

Touche, sir. Touche!

For what it's worth, I like the Last Sea. I just don't like it in Dark Sun.

And, really, I kind of read your point as "I don't see how The Cold War is bad, in the way that the Second World War is bad". Yeah, the Cold War isn't as bad, but it isn't GOOD, either. And apologies for the analogy... I'm a little tired.

 

[Wik]

Hey, Aegeri? I'm not calling anyone daft, and I'm not jumping in on personal attacks. I find this an interesting topic, and so do a few others. Let's not get in on the personal attacks or heated comments, here. I'd rather see this thread kept open, even if we disagree with one another.

I actually can't think of the last time the Feywild impacted on or had anything significant to do with any of the 4E games I've run. Despite it being oddly important to 4E somehow. One of the adventures goes to the Feywild for a bit I think (Trollhaunt Warrens IIRC), but the shadowfell is far more significant.

Agreed. I never argued that. But there is a lot of feywild geared stuff out there. Personally, I think the shadowfell would work better in Athas than a feywild, because I don't see it conflicting with one of the main athasian themes out there (the wilderness setting).

Why make up a shade plane when you have an already established plane that does that to begin with? Basically you ask "Why are we not making up something new when we have something that can do this".

Well, first off, because that shade plane doesn't challenge the idea of athasian wilderness. Dark Sun, to me, has always been about two things: Spending time trying to survive in super dangerous cities, and then excaping those cities into the wilderness and trying to survive in a completely different manner. Repeat.

The feywild - TO ME - dilutes that wilderness aspect a bit. Because a lot of those places in Dark Sun I love... a village suspended over molten lava, a subterranean lake that hisses out yellow gas that causes hallucinations, or a psychic entity that calls people into the silt sea... those places are part of the natural world of athas. And I can see them being shunted off to the feywild as a means of making the setting "make sense".

Rich Baker has already, in that blog post, mentioned doing this to preexisting material. And I'm not a fan of that. You may be. Fair enough. But it's not a mindset I approve of.

I'm not going to dig up the quote, or paraphrase it from memory. Because apparently I should never use quotation marks.

You're also completely ignoring all the justifications that Rich Baker has already provided about this.

Not ignoring them. Disagreeing with them. Two different things. I understand why he's doing what he's doing. I just don't think those reasons are necessary/worthwhile. I will not be doing them in my campaign, and in a perfect world, I'd rather see that page space being used to describe other things.

I've been waiting for fifteen years to find out what's to be found in "Mage Home". Tell me more about THAT, please!

Haven't we already covered why this is wrong? Is everyone going to ignore the whole "The feywild in Athas is dying and is only in small scattered pockets". Not to mention the homicidal xenophobic inhabitants.

Both KM and I have responded to that. And why we disagree with it. But I'll reiterate MY views on this.

A scattered feywild works, but since Baker's post ties Eladrin and the Feywild together, I think we can assume that the justification that Eladrin use the feywild to teleport still stands. That means that, fluff-wise, there is always a feywild when an Eladrin chooses to teleport. Meaning those small pockets aren't that scattered.

This may not be the case. We're extrapolating. Absoltuely. But it's not just me. People who are pointing at the post and saying "this is fact" are extrapolating too. It goes both ways.

And yeah, the feywild is dying. But then, so is Athas. So, again, why do we need another batch of dying wilderness that is turned up to 11? A few functional reasons have been given, which I have acknowledged. They're not for me, but whatever. To each their own. I still don't think they're necessary.

As for those xenophobic inhabitants... how can they fight off invaders? If they are somehow better than the Elves, Thri-Kreen, Muls, and Humans of the setting (to say nothing of the wasteland horrors or Sorcerer kings), then we have another case of "Eladrin are always awesome"itis going around. If they're in a place that can be invaded, they should not be able to withstand the invasion.

I don't want Eladrin to occupy in Athas the place that Drow occupy in Forgotten Realms.

Your tasts may vary.

This just fails to make sense, of all the complaints you make this is just daft.

I like how you accuse me of not listening to others, and then ignore my line of reasoning completely.

Does Thay in Forgotten Realms become a pleasant place for a happy holiday because the Abyss is arguably infinitely worse?

Are we comparing apples to apples here? Thay is a place with undead and wizards on the material plane. The Abyss is a place where none of the rules of physics apply, and everything is suffering.

The desert in athas is a dry, hot place devastated by arcane magic. The feywild connected to athas is a dryer, hotter place even more devastated by arcane magic.

My idea for a Thay based campaign in FR is all humanoid races are basically slaves and cattle to the local undead (essentially currency and food in that order). I mean, that would really suck as a place to live.

Still better than Des Moines or Saskatchewan.

Does that mean when the PCs learn there is a horrible place filled with daemons of incomprehensible evil that suddenly they go "Hey, this place where we're all slaves to be sold and consumed by undead isn't that bad after all it could be daemons!".

If they go to the Abyss, and then come back, yeah, they probably will.

My players hate the dwarven city of Drogas, but they prefer it to the Tiefling city of Kael Turath. Which is a better place to be than the outskirts of the feywild.

Which is fine and dandy. But they're comparing different entities. And the wilderness of athas is one of the key points of the setting. To put a place alongside it and make that place an exaggeration of your key point overshadows said key point. In my humble opinion.

Why would I bother? This is yet another argument from you that makes absolutely zero sense in any manner.

How is it an argument? I am simply saying "I'll consider your point of view, if you'll consider mine"?

Isn't that the exact opposite of an argument?

I'm a very bad person, for daring to consider what those who disagree with me are saying, apparently.

Due to the fact the Feywild is dying in Athas, it's in small pockets in immensely isolated places the only way it affects my game in any manner is if I want it to. If I decide to bring it into the game I can do so easily, otherwise it has absolutely zero effect on my game at all.

Yyyyup. Absolutely true. Never argued that point.

Now, if you don't want to use it, aren't you glad that page, page and a half (not to mention the inevitable "fey monsters" in the MM addition) are there? And if you do use it, what are you using it as?

To be honest, many of the suggestions people have made on how to use the feywild, in my mind, don't need a feywild at all, to be just as cool. A vague "Shade Plane" could cover a lot more bases as an alternative plane than a specifically nature-themed plane could in Dark Sun... and help convey the settings theme more, as well.

What point exactly do you think you're making? If I don't see the need to use something that is entirely at my discretion to use I'll see what?

I am saying that it doesn't need to be there. That the space can be better used. We know that there will be a sidebar saying "hey, if you want to have gnomes, they could exist, but it's not core". Why make the feywild core, when you could just as easily leave it undefined for people to use if they see fit, without needlessly changing the setting?

Especially when it's almost entirely gone and my PCs aren't likely to go there because it's either as bad as Athas normally or worse (with xenophobic inhabitants).

Pardon my sarcasm, here, but it's the only way I can summarize my point. Thank *GOD* WotC made a place that is so bad that our PCs can't visit it.

 

[Aldarc]

I am not sure how discussion benefits from further disagreement about the necessity of the Feywild. We do not have the full picture as we do not have the books. Wik and everyone else admits this. For most arguing against the Feywild in Athas is a minor point of disagreement and not a deal breaker. Why argue as if it was? It is merely a matter of taste. If I could change anything thus far that I've heard about 4E Dark Sun, I would roll the timeline back further so that Tyr was not a free city and still under the yolk of Kalak. I happen to feel that having deposed sorcerer-kings dilutes the setting by making the sorcerer-kings seem less invincible. We all have our preferences about how Dark Sun should be.

 

[Wik]

I am not sure how discussion benefits from further disagreement about the necessity of the Feywild. We do not have the full picture as we do not have the books. Wik and everyone else admits this. For most arguing against the Feywild in Athas is a minor point of disagreement and not a deal breaker.

Well said.

Why argue as if it was?

Poops and giggles?

If I could change anything thus far that I've heard about 4E Dark Sun, I would roll the timeline back further so that Tyr was not a free city and still under the yolk of Kalak. I happen to feel that having deposed sorcerer-kings dilutes the setting by making the sorcerer-kings seem less invincible. We all have our preferences about how Dark Sun should be.

Wanna debate about that, then? Because I disagree with you there, too, actually. But I totally get where you're coming from on that one. Almost all of my campaigns started with Kalak as king, and none ever got to the part where Kalak was deposed.

I just want to jump to the good part and start with Tyr recently being freed.

It's an interesting debate, and one with a LOT more grounds than this feywild debacle. I think at this point, it's all about which side gets the last word... which I was willing to do, until I was called "daft".

My Dark Sun, by the way, is not a "by the book" dark sun, either. A few of the changes I made to the old 2e setting (some which may or may not come back):

* All magic that is not psionics is hated. People can't tell the difference between an elemental priest (er, primal character now, I guess) and a wizard. They don't know the diff between a preserver and a defiler. If you cast magic, you get lynched.
* Very few magic items (is this core to the setting? It always was with us, but the modules don't seem to support it)
* Fewer psionicists/wild talents. Psionics are still prevalent... just not AS prevalent (mostly because we hated the rules in 2e).
* Completely reworked the Veiled Alliance. Basing the alliance off the French Resistance in WW2 does not work that well, when the alliance has only a hundred members or so in a particular city.
* Templars were regularly available as player characters (*SO* glad this option is coming back in 4e!).
* I invented new city-states beyond the Tyr Region. In fact, I figured they were all over the planet... there was nothing special about the Tyr Region, except that the PCs were there. I hinted that there could be hundreds of Sorcerer Kings out there...
* In that vein, the sorcerer kings weren't as powerful. I mean, they were POWERFUL, but not godlike. PCs could become Sorcerer Kings, thereotically. And grant spells to their templars.
* Anything involving Rajaat or that revised nonsense was blasted out, unless I liked it (seriously, what the hell was Mage Home!?)

 

[Aegeri]

Hey, Aegeri? I'm not calling anyone daft, and I'm not jumping in on personal attacks.

Saying your arguments are daft =/ personal attack.

Because you are making some really poorly supported arguments.

Agreed. I never argued that. But there is a lot of feywild geared stuff out there.

I still don't see the relevance here to Dark Sun or why this somehow shows that the feywild was put into Dark Sun based on this. Your logic here is just not supported, because as I mentioned the shadowfell has had quite a bit more than the feywild (or at least as much).

Well, first off, because that shade plane doesn't challenge the idea of athasian wilderness.

Neither does the feywild and you've not made a convincing argument for why this is so yet.

Spending time trying to survive in super dangerous cities, and then excaping those cities into the wilderness and trying to survive in a completely different manner. Repeat.

Okay I can go with this train of thought thus far.

The feywild - TO ME - dilutes that wilderness aspect a bit. Because a lot of those places in Dark Sun I love... a village suspended over molten lava, a subterranean lake that hisses out yellow gas that causes hallucinations, or a psychic entity that calls people into the silt sea... those places are part of the natural world of athas. And I can see them being shunted off to the feywild as a means of making the setting "make sense".

You have poor evidence that this is the case. In fact absolutely zero except for one particular place that is mentioned. It's also mentioned as disappearing off Athas and then reappearing - like a mirage. Where would a place that disappears and reappears mysteriously be most likely located? On another plane that phases in and out with the current one.

Undoubtedly you will mangle the example Rich Baker gave as if that somehow accounts for all natural environments on Athas. This is more than likely not going to be the case, because the specific example makes sense specifically as a place in the feywild. Everything you describe there that are natural formations on Athas are unlikely to be on the feywild if they are intended for being on Athas itself.

In addition to this, given that they feywild is very rare as they have emphasized there is very little of the feywild left. This means there isn't enough feywild to go around all these fantastic locations in one world.

So do you honestly believe that's enough to account for all the normally pretty horribly just by itself terrain?

Rich Baker has already, in that blog post, mentioned doing this to preexisting material.

What a guess! You did indeed utterly mangle the example he gave that even makes 100% sense for the context it is put in for being in the feywild. A place that is described as a mirage that appears and disappears, suddenly turns into all fantastic athasian terrain in the feywild.

The sheer leap of logic here is just astounding and utterly unfounded.

And I'm not a fan of that. You may be. Fair enough. But it's not a mindset I approve of.

You seem to assume I think all fantastic terrain in athas is from the feywild when no such thing has been said, by Rich Baker or anyone working on Dark Sun at all.

Here is the example from Rich Bakers blog for the record:

So in Athas the eladrin become a mysterious, greatly feared race rumored to dwell in the Lands within the Wind—the strange otherworldly deserts and “hidden cities” that travelers sometimes stumble into in the middle of the most desolate wastelands. Here’s a great example something from previous Dark Sun lore that fits: The mysterious Siren’s Song in the Forked Tongue Estuary. The madness that leads travelers to wade out to their doom in the silt comes from mind-bending wards and fences of mirage that guard an eladrin hold in the isle’s Feywild.

Sometimes you run into otherworldly strange places and hidden cities. Given these are rumors it suggests these are not at all commonly encountered (or perhaps even survived). It does not state anywhere "All fantastic terrain is from the feywild".

Not ignoring them. Disagreeing with them.

It would help if you disagreed with what he wrote and not what you think he wrote.

Both KM and I have responded to that. And why we disagree with it. But I'll reiterate MY views on this.

I haven't really found your responses logical to be honest.

A scattered feywild works, but since Baker's post ties Eladrin and the Feywild together, I think we can assume that the justification that Eladrin use the feywild to teleport still stands.

Why? This is a fluff based answer, but it does not mean that Eladrin in dark sun have to teleport.

That means that, fluff-wise, there is always a feywild when an Eladrin chooses to teleport. Meaning those small pockets aren't that scattered.

Even though he said they were when he wrote:

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.

If you can't travel from one feywild location to another through the feywild, it indicates they are pretty scattered. He might be putting on his prince of lies hat and each trip might be the equivalent of going five minutes down the road, but I don't think any fair or reasonable interpretation of what he actually wrote indicates they are close together.

This may not be the case. We're extrapolating. Absoltuely. But it's not just me. People who are pointing at the post and saying "this is fact" are extrapolating too. It goes both ways.

I'm quoting Rich Baker directly and what he's writing is far closer to what I'm saying the interpretation is.

As for those xenophobic inhabitants... how can they fight off invaders? If they are somehow better than the Elves, Thri-Kreen, Muls, and Humans of the setting (to say nothing of the wasteland horrors or Sorcerer kings), then we have another case of "Eladrin are always awesome"itis going around. If they're in a place that can be invaded, they should not be able to withstand the invasion.

Maybe that's why they are in pockets of a plane that is rarely occurring and hard to find or travel to? I mean, your argument here just doesn't make sense because I can flip it on any of the above races. How are elves surviving? How are Thri-Kreen? Muls? Humans?

I mean, everything in Athas wants to kill you.

I like how you accuse me of not listening to others, and then ignore my line of reasoning completely.

That's because your argument there is extremely poor and not even well supported by logic.

Are we comparing apples to apples here? Thay is a place with undead and wizards on the material plane. The Abyss is a place where none of the rules of physics apply, and everything is suffering.

So how does this change your core point?

Your point is:

Place A is terrible
Place B is more terrible then Place A
Magically, Place A is suddenly not terrible anymore.

How in any manner does this make sense? This is your logic.

Still better than Des Moines or Saskatchewan.

So does that suddenly make Thay not terrible anymore?

I'm confused because someone who is a slave in Thay probably isn't worried about other places at the moment.

If they go to the Abyss, and then come back, yeah, they probably will.

Which is why it's handy I decide if I even use the abyss in my campaign.

Which is fine and dandy. But they're comparing different entities. And the wilderness of athas is one of the key points of the setting.

When I'm running a game in the middle of Thay the key point of the setting of that campaign is the fact its a horrible blasted undead wasteland. That there are worse places isn't so relevant.

To put a place alongside it and make that place an exaggeration of your key point overshadows said key point. In my humble opinion.

That's extremely rare, up to the DM to use and will be gone very soon anyway.

How is it an argument? I am simply saying "I'll consider your point of view, if you'll consider mine"?

Your point of view isn't even based on what Rich Baker wrote in my opinion. This is really the exception I am taking to your arguments, they are adding this vast amount of hyperbole onto something that has been made pretty clear how it works.

Also your argument is implying "You'll see it will be different" and yet it won't. Because I determine exactly (as I'll be DMing) if that is in the game or not to begin with. I don't see what there is to remove, because if I don't want to use it then I don't have to! They even give me a perfect fluff reason not to!

Now, if you don't want to use it, aren't you glad that page, page and a half (not to mention the inevitable "fey monsters" in the MM addition) are there? And if you do use it, what are you using it as?

Whatever I feel like, given that he already 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.

And they can be back whenever I want. I could even make that a campaign if I felt like it. But ultimately it makes exceptionally little difference because feywild based effects (mechanically) are barely existent anyway (some wizard spells are exceptions to this rule).

I am saying that it doesn't need to be there.

I'm saying it doesn't matter either way, because Rich Baker has wrote it into the setting a way that is both carefully considered and based on good logic. Logic that you constantly turn into strawmans that come out of absolutely nothing he wrote. Like using fluff for teleportation in the players handbook instead of seeing how it works in Dark Sun. Not that teleportation powers in Dark Sun require you to travel across another plane to function though I'd like to point out.

That the space can be better used. We know that there will be a sidebar saying "hey, if you want to have gnomes, they could exist, but it's not core". Why make the feywild core, when you could just as easily leave it undefined for people to use if they see fit, without needlessly changing the setting?

Maybe a designer blogged about that?

Pardon my sarcasm, here, but it's the only way I can summarize my point. Thank *GOD* WotC made a place that is so bad that our PCs can't visit it.

I know! It's like they made something that's very rare and hard to access, because it's very rare and hard to access normally on that plane

Edit: My problem really isn't that you dislike it, it's that you're making contrived reasons that aren't based on what anyone wrote about it to dislike it. If you had simply said "I dislike this because I don't really like Eladrin in the setting" that would be fine. The reasons you've come up with though aren't supported by what Rich Baker wrote about it on his blog. You've extrapolated things yes, but you've done so in a way that isn't suggested from a fair reading of the text you're basing your extrapolation on.

Edit2: Let it be known that if the feywild is absolutely EVERYWHERE and that if ALL magical terrain is explained using the feywild in the book as you claim I will be the *first* to apologize to you for my tone. Otherwise I think you are being uncharitable to how Rich Baker has described this. Really, that's my problem with what you are arguing. You are more than welcome to hold me to this as well, consider it a bet/promise whatever.

In fact I am so confident that Rich Baker and company haven't done anything like what you've described, that if I am wrong I will change my avatar to a pink tutu dancer and my title to the princess of lies.

 

[Wik]

Snip

Okay. I'm not going to respond in length to your post, because really, we've both said our pieces. I'm sorry if you're upset about my tone in regards to Baker's post - I've done my best to be polite, and from my readings on said blog post, I don't like where it's going.

And I've said so. There have been a lot of people who disagree with me on this, but I don't get why it matters what *I* think about something to anyone but myself. I've argued my points, and tried to do so to the best of my ability. If people don't agree, fair enough. I'm not tryign to win hearts or minds.

But I'm not wrong. And neither are those arguing with me. You can't be wrong in something that is purely subjective and speculative. At least, not here, you can't be.

Anyways. We've reached an impasse, and that is fine and dandy. Anyone else feel like moving the conversation on to something else?

 

[Obryn]

Is there anyone else who completely tunes out of an argument when people start replying line-by-line?

It's like a degenerate state of messageboard communication than indicates it's gone on way, way too long.

-O

 

[Mouseferatu]

Is there anyone else who completely tunes out of an argument when people start replying line-by-line?

Sorry, what was that? I wasn't listening.

 

[Scribble]

Is this the thread for awesome people?

 

[Mouseferatu]

Is this the thread for awesome people?

This is ENWorld. We're all awesome.

Except for You-Know-Who. He sucks.