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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Hamburger Mary" data-source="post: 1475984" data-attributes="member: 17363">Not at all. Just because I don't feel the same way doesn't mean that I expect you to agree with me. To me, it all depends on how common wizards are. In Lord of the Rings, they are extremely rare, and it makes sense that they wouldn't have much impact on society. In FR or by the DMG demographics, they are extremely common -- so much so that they can't all be adventurers. And that's my thing: If there are lots of wizards, they ought to have an impact on the world. Of course, Eberron has actually specifically said that it's limiting the number of NPCs that use PC classes, so that a PC wizard will be a remarkable character; I'm glad to hear this, personally. Following from the last Dragon article, it seems the majority of common spells are things like mending, prestidigitation, continual flame, augury, and the new magecraft spell -- not teleport, sending, or things like that which would dramaticlaly change the feel of civilization. It's also been said that most priests are not actually clerics -- so cure disease is a miraculous thing, and the temple is not a shopping center. Actually, this has been clarified by the designer. This is based on the inclusion of a sentence from the 1-page submission in one of the WotC previews, intended to show where the setting had begun at what it had since become. The designer has said that it did start out being over the top but that this changed as early as the 10-page submission, and that the comparisons to Indiana Jones are about the tone of the action, not the trappings of the world. He's also mentioned Conan as an example of what he considers to be "pulp".  I'm not sure where you got the half-orc impression. It would obviously be strange, since they are a halfbreed race. What I have gathered is that both humans and orcs live in the Shadow Marches, and thus half-orcs are more common there than in other places in the world. But I've never seen anything implying that they are a culture unto themselves. I know that *orcs* have a distinct culture, and that this may justify the existence of half-orcs beyond random rape. We'll see.  I don't think anything's changed, I think it was a matter of assumption before information was released. There is a continent where the dominant civilization has been affected by the existence of psionics, just as Khorvaire has cultures affected by the presence of magic. There are two races that have innate psionic abilities that are found on this continent. The impression I gather is that they are somewhat alien -- that their psionic abilities are the result of a tie to one of the outer planes. The word from the designer is that he wanted psionics to have a logical place in the world as opposed to being random mutations, but that they are intentionally placed at a distance from the center of the action and can thus be dropped easily by DMs who don't want to use psionics. As a fan of Julian May's Pliocene Exile books, I like the idea of a well-constructed psionic society; it's always bothered me that D&D provides the rules for them but that none of the settings (DS aside) give them any sort of place in the world. But again, I respect your opinion... just sharing mine. And yes, it was Ultima 1-3 I was refering to. I believe that Ultima Online 2 was also going to have a technological society.</blockquote>

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