Upgrade your account to a Community Supporter account and remove most of the site ads.
Rocket your D&D 5E and Level Up: Advanced 5E games into space! Alpha Star Magazine Is Launching... Right Now!

Reply to thread

Message: <blockquote data-quote="The Grumpy Celt" data-source="post: 3994333" data-attributes="member: 1019">This isn’t about Unther (Mulhorand has not been mentioned in official literature yet) but people keep mentioning it probably because it seems to be one of the most poorly thought out examples currently available. But I’ll get to Unther in a minute.Case No. 1: ThayThay is a better example of what feels wrong about 4th Ed. In the current time line (as the 4th Ed. Realms book has not be released to up date the setting officially), Thay is a sinister nation of evil wizards that has at long last descended into civil war. People do play games involving the Thay we have been presented with for the last two decades. People are interested in the civil war. On some boards there are entire threads about Thay, the war and its major players. The new setting does not advance this plot, it shoot this plot between the eyes. Following the events of Spellplague, Thay (or at least parts of it) were pushed up by magical geology so that its elevation is thousands of feet higher than it was. That’s it – that is the development. In place of a traditional evil enemy that people did use, in place of an interesting plot… we have geographic hurdles. Flipping through the books to check out the rules for mountaineering is going to replace an on going civil war in an evil wizards’ nation. If I wanted to climb a G*d*a*n*d mountain I would go to a mountain. I go to Thay for evil wizards and the civil war, not bare-handed rock climbing. What was the thought process behind this decision? If the Realms had to have some hard to climb mountains, why put them of Thay? How is that (the mandated and seemingly arbitrary destruction of the long-standing villain) a better idea than seeing the civil war to its conclusion and possibly letting the players have a hand in the outcome? Case No. 2: UntherUnther was, like Thay, in the middle of an on going plot – it was being conquered by Mulhorand. According to the time line in Grand History, this eventually happened. Further, there were developments that had not been seen to completion, such as the appearance of Untheric people transformed by Selune and the growth and goals cult of Tiamat.However, this is all s*i*c*n*e* so we can have a nation of Gorn-wanna-be’s. Granted, having a nation of warrior-reptile people is a fairly standard trope in science fiction and fantasy. But why Unther? There were other places that could have been replaced with out shooting another on-going plot in the head. For example, there had been little official development with either the Vast or Chondath in recent years. Putting the nation of Gorn-wanna-be’s on one of them would have been development (after a fashion) rather than a random act. Further, Chondath is going to be destroyed in 4th Ed. anyway – it could have been replaced by the nation of Gorn-wanna-be’s, (still a kind of development) and allow the situation with Unther and Mulhorand to develop. In addition, Chondath is closer to places like Cormyr, Sembia and the Dalelands than Unther, thus the new nation of nation of warrior-reptile people would be situated to be more of a threat than it is based on its replacement of Unther.But that did not happen. Unther was destroyed and replaced and Chondath was simply destroyed and were are supposed to think this is all good.</blockquote>

Verification