D&D General Fall of Netheril- The Return of the Arcane Age Subsetting

[Henadic Theologian]

Arcane Age series

forgottenrealms.fandom.com

Netheril: Empire of Magic - Wikipedia.

The Arcane Age Subsetting started with a book called Netheril: Empire of Magic and it expanded from there, but it all started with Netheril. It got novels too, haven't read them yet.

The new product Fall of Netheril feels like an update to thos book in particular snd Arcane Age as a whole.

Could the 3rd DLC be am update to another subsetting as well? Say Al Qadim, or Kara Tur? Hoardlands? Laerakond was kind of a subsetting within 4e.

Thoughts?

 

[Burnside]

I kinda wonder if the third thing (I refuse to call it a DLC since you can't download it) might be Underdark-related. They haven't really used it much since Out of the Abyss (2015).

 

[aco175]

The new product Fall of Netheril feels like an update to thos book in particular snd Arcane Age as a whole.

This is the new product coming out in November 2025. The other books mentioned are from 2e days for those confused like I was.

 

[FitzTheRuke]

I kinda wonder if the third thing (I refuse to call it a DLC since you can't download it) might be Underdark-related. They haven't really used it much since Out of the Abyss (2015).

I call it EDC or Expanded Digital Content.

 

[Henadic Theologian]

This is the new product coming out in November 2025. The other books mentioned are from 2e days for those confused like I was.

I should have made that clearer. Arcane Age as you say from 2e, but this upcoming DLC for 5.24e Forgotten Realms settings books seems like a return to the 2e subsetting, which could be just the beginning. The 3rd DLC also be set during the Arcane Age in another major nation or it could be the return of another subsetting entirely. Of course it's more likely species of Faerun DLC, but even if it is, that doesn't mean there won't be other DLCs or even books exploring the rest if the rest of the Arcane Age or the other subsettings like Al Qadim, Maztica, and Kara Tur, or even just DLCs focusing on other regions like the the divine Old Empires, Conan inspired Unapproachable East, or the dark cold Cold Lands, etc...

 

[FitzTheRuke]

Why do you think that there will be a ton of "DLCs"?

I think that if they announce 3, then you can expect 3.

I also think that there being DLCs is just someone's idea of how to monetize material that was developed for the books, but didn't fit.

Apparently, it's common that they develop a ton of material for each book, but have to make a lot of cuts when they get down to final page counts. All it would take, IMO, is for some exec to wonder about the wasted development expense, and they get to polish the cut content for DLCs (as Digital content isn't beholden to page counts in quite the same way).

While it would have taken extra development to make the cut content "ready for prime time", it would take much much more effort to make even more "DLCs".

I mean, if it's a success, we will probably see this again for future products, but I doubt we will see more related to these products. (Unless, of course, a future product is itself related to these books).

 

[bedir than]

Why do you think that there will be a ton of "DLCs"?

I think that if they announce 3, then you can expect 3.

I also think that there being DLCs is just someone's idea of how to monetize material that was developed for the books, but didn't fit.

Apparently, it's common that they develop a ton of material for each book, but have to make a lot of cuts when they get down to final page counts. All it would take, IMO, is for some exec to wonder about the wasted development expense, and they get to polish the cut content for DLCs (as Digital content isn't beholden to page counts in quite the same way).

While it would have taken extra development to make the cut content "ready for prime time", it would take much much more effort to make even more "DLCs".

I mean, if it's a success, we will probably see this again for future products, but I doubt we will see more related to these products. (Unless, of course, a future product is itself related to these books).

Wasn't it Rawson who said that they get halfway through development on twice as many products as reach the shelves?

There's a lot of content sitting that may not hit book sales numbers that could be released in other formats.

 

[FitzTheRuke]

Wasn't it Rawson who said that they get halfway through development on twice as many products as reach the shelves?

There's a lot of content sitting that may not hit book sales numbers that could be released in other formats.

Yes, that's my point. But there's only so much of rejected content that can be polished up to "prime time", so I'm inclined to think that if they came up with THREE that they felt would work, then it's going to be three. Had it been four or more, then they would have announced four or more.

After they see how this does, they may do more to go along with future products, but unless those are explorations of the Realms as well, I doubt that they'll have much in common with these ones.

 

[UngainlyTitan]

Wasn't it Rawson who said that they get halfway through development on twice as many products as reach the shelves?

There's a lot of content sitting that may not hit book sales numbers that could be released in other formats.

I suspect that the stuff that will be low cost DLC will be the stuff that almost makes it to the final lay out pass. That stuff that was commissioned before they decided on the final focus of a book. Given that they discard 50% probably means that there are whole chapter in near publishable state sitting on their archives that never see the light of day because it did not fit thematically of tonally with other submissions for a project.