Fomorians article on DDI

[Kishin]

"Heironeous" has been sanctified by immemorial tradition, reaching back almost 30 years.

I figure if other posters can whine endlessly about tiny rule changes then there's a whole lot of complaining about nomenclature available for me.

That doesn't make it a good name. Well, IMO, as clarified below.

While not exactly bristling with originality, Feydark sure trumps, I dunno, Mechanus, if we're going for plane names.

Really though, names, more than a lot of other things, are really a matter of personal opinion though. I guess that's another reason I don't quite see the point in squabbling over them,.

The fluff in prior editions wasn't nearly so intrusive in the core books. For 3e, they just used a few dabs of warmed over Greyhawk. For 4e, they are purposefully and deliberately creating fluff and integrating it with the rules. Thus, it gets a lot more criticism; it's a major part of what distinguishes 4e from 3e, and so, it gets focused on.

*shrug* I don't see it as much more than suggestions, starting points, and an idea pool. I doubt that you'll need the fluff/PoL gimmick to run 4E.

 

[Scholar & Brutalman]

That doesn't make it a good name. Well, IMO, as clarified below.

I've updated my post to make my point a bit clearer...

 

[Blair Goatsblood]

More geek than Greek in this case. The absurdity came from the creatures respective alignments and ecology according to the 2e Monster Compendium. The Giants were evil but the Dryads were not. Also Dryads were solitary creatures. It was a case of the D.M. trying to one-up the players with a difficult challenge.

I dunno, I would have no problem having a tribe of giants who serve dryad mistresses who ride them into battle IMC, makes me think of vengeful spirits of the wilderness.

I've never been a stickler about following the "recomendations" regarding alignment, ecology in the official source either, Rule 0 and all.

Heck, I'm sure I could find a similar encounter in the Wilderlands boxed set.

 

[Dr. Confoundo]

If they wanted an Unseelie Court why not keep the dark elves? They scream dark fey to me (~"fey-dark" get it?). If there is some place in the feywild that eladrins cannot reach, I don’t see why the drow wouldn’t occupy and rule it.

Actually the whole drow underdark would work much better if it was in the feywild for the most part, but connected to caves throughout the world. Geologically speaking, vast subterranean interconnected kingdoms in the material world are not that credible.

If the drow didn't already have such extensive baggage, I'd love this option. However, with all of the spiders/Lolth/driders/Demonweb Pits stuff they'd have to jettison for this to work, I think you'd anger a lot more people than you'd make happy.

As they are now, they just don't read as 'Unseelie Court'.

 

[Jack99]

Underhill is good. Feydeep or feydepths wouldn't have been too bad either. But it's hardly important, I think anyone who wants a different name for it will just make one up.

Underhill sounds like a place where halflings live. Feydeep sounds like it is a lake or something. Feydark will do just fine, or maybe it's the evil influence of Evercrack... /ponder

When that is said, great article, plenty of good ideas in there, fan-[censored]-tastic art, IMNSHO of course.

 

[Kishin]

I've updated my post to make my point a bit clearer...

Thanks for the clarification. I'm generally pretty proud of my ability to detect sarcasm in text, but since I've actually seen such an argument made before, I assumed you were also stating that.

Apologies.

 

[Atlatl Jones]

Here I was thinking "They should get the people who wrote Exalted to think up cool names for them!"

Memory, she is fickle...

The Wyld is pretty sexy though. So is the Underworld.

I don't see why every name in the game needs to be "The AdjectiveNoun." Many of the planes and most of the monster types are adjectivenouns. The planar exceptions, The Astral Sea and the Elemental Chaos, are evocative names precisely because they're not adjectivenouns. They can draw upon imagery without being constrained by the need to cram it into a single word.

 

[LordArchaon]

Hey all fluff names in the 4e books are not meant to be campaign indications, I mean... Yeah, someone told that the name of the ancient Tiefling kingdom was there on purpose because you needed to have a ready name to quote it but come on, a good DM can come with good names in 5 minutes, so the same is for Feydark and the like.

So every campaign will hopefully have their name for the planes and everything. Of course "Feywild" and "Shadowfell" being so generic and purposely seeming invented by simple/common people, are there to be quoted sometimes without any problem.

But come on, 4e introduces the meta-world concept and I think is soo assumable that all the names can be considered "meta-names" as a consequence.

 

[pukunui]

I was never a fan of the Underdark. My current campaign world doesn't have one. However, I quite like the Feydark, funny name or not. The description immediately made me think of Stalin-era Soviet Russia and Eastern Europe behind the Iron Curtain.

Also, that piece of art is rousetastic!

 

[The Eternal GM]

All seems fine to me, feydark conjures the right mental images for me and the fluff is fine... I can see myself using it if my group enjoys the default PoL setting for 4th Ed.

I do hope that they don't work in too many linked sub-realms over time though, like feysea or whatever... That'd just get tiresome.

But feydark works, gives a name and a home for all the evil and unseelie fey, as well as giving a worthwhile treatment (finally!) to Fomors. Those guys have been milling around in my head as something to use since I read Slaine... But I never liked they way fey were used in previous editions, hopefully 4th Ed. can change that.

So no big problems here.