How is FR changing with 4E?

[The Little Raven]

You're still missing the problem - the god of honor decided not to believe the god of truth and loyalty.

And you're missing that this isn't a problem, especially considering that Helm is not the god of truth and loyalty.

Torm the True, Lord of Loyalty kinda has those titles for a reason.

 

[Ruin Explorer]

And you're missing that this isn't a problem, especially considering that Helm is not the god of truth and loyalty.

Torm the True, Lord of Loyalty kinda has those titles for a reason.

Yep, the real problem is still the whole idea that Tymora would somehow want to get married without being in love (or even consent to it), and that Sune would arrange it. This is considerably less likely than any of the other FR changes.

The other stuff can be bought as an unlikely if typically Olympian tragedy. The female gods involved just render it utterly idiotic, though. I suspect this is largely being ignored for vaguely gender-related reasons. The whole "balance must be maintained" thing is a complete pile of crap that they literally just made up specifically for this (instead of, god help us, using existing lore).

Also, Tyr is an incredibly boring and personality-free god, so him doing, well, anything exciting is kind of hard to believe.

 

[NilesB]

In 3e, FR retconned their cosmology from the Great Wheel to the "Great Tree" that never really got developed in further books, and was something of a hot button issue among FR fans for who used the new cosmology and its retroactive existance within the setting, or didn't. If you've been around here long enough you'll have seen me go off on a rant about the whole thing, and speculate that any potential 4e would change things and retcon the retcon.

Whereas in 2E, FR retconned their cosmology to the Great Wheel, and to being a part of the Planescape and Spelljammer Settings.

 

[The Little Raven]

Yep, the real problem is still the whole idea that Tymora would somehow want to get married without being in love (or even consent to it), and that Sune would arrange it. This is considerably less likely than any of the other FR changes.

I don't find it too unlikely. Things were shifting out of balance, and Tyr wanted things righted. Maybe Sune felt that the free-spirited lady of good fortune could help mend the troubles that the god of justice was facing, as he just lost a key ally over an issue in the mortal world.

Seeing as the Goddess of Love in other pantheons has done some crazy things that seem at odds with love, I don't find this very difficult to accept.

The other stuff can be bought as an unlikely if typically Olympian tragedy.

Read up on real-world pantheons, aside from the Olympians. Nothing the Forgotten Realms gods have done comes close to the strangeness that our own myths possess.

Also, Tyr is an incredibly boring and personality-free god, so him doing, well, anything exciting is kind of hard to believe.

And that's exactly why this makes so much sense. He has no personality, he is simply Justice. And when Justice is slighted (or believes such, as Justice is blind), even gods must face it's punishment.

 

[ppaladin123]

Does anyone have a link to a concise description of the changes to the pantheon? I am trying to build a paladin or cleric for LFR and I don't know who is left to worship.

Mystara=dead
Tyr= dead (according to Cormyr article)
Helm= dead
Lathandar-----> actually Amaunator
Gond-----> actually Moradin (?)

Anything else?

 

[Leatherhead]

I've said this many times as well, but it falls on deaf ears. All of the major complaints against the Realms which were also used as justification for the destruction of the Realms can all be attributed to either bad DMing or fear that they have to know everything about hte Realms to play in it.

That's because what the DM knows isn't exactly the problem. The problem is how much the players know.

Between all the source books and novels and articles in various magazines, the Realms have more information available than any other DnD setting I know of. This causes a problem when the information filters down into the players hands, because then the players expect the world to behave in the way they know about, and then the DM decides to do something different.

Imagine this : Your DM invites your group to go get some rocky road, and instead of ice cream, you get a candy bar. I happen to enjoy the occasional candy bar, but not anywhere near as much as I enjoy ice cream. So of course I am a little disappointed. It is the same thing that happens with players thinking they are playing in Forgotten Realms.

 

[Celtavian]

re

That's going to suck if they killed Lathander or changed him into Amaunator. My favorite cleric character will be no more. I hope Lathander is still about.

 

[Elodan]

Does anyone have a link to a concise description of the changes to the pantheon? I am trying to build a paladin or cleric for LFR and I don't know who is left to worship.

Mystara=dead
Tyr= dead (according to Cormyr article)
Helm= dead
Lathandar-----> actually Amaunator
Gond-----> actually Moradin (?)

Anything else?

There's nothing specific out there for the changes to the pantheon. On the WotC boards I saw someone put together a best guess of the changes that included the gods (I'd link but the WotC boards are down at the moment).

IIRC, most of the non-human deities are gone and those outside of the core group (TBD) are now saints or demi-gods reporting to the higher ups.

 

[Spatula]

I don't really have much invested in the realms - I never cared for the over-the-topedness of the whole thing, nor the constant barrage of world-altering catastrophies. But it seems to me they could have accomplished what they wanted simply by advancing the timeline. The non-immortal, non-elf NPCs die off, wars happen, borders change, power groups fade away or are born, etc. So I don't quite understand the perceived need for the spellplague, which is lazy and sloppy writing. All the very popular areas of the setting survive intact for no reason other than their popularity, and the rest of the world is basically wiped clean. Now that's handy from a simplification viewpoint, but again, the passage of a century or two could have accomplished the same thing. Just not in such a over-the-top, world-altering fashion.

The stuff with the gods looks very tacked on to me. But then I wasn't aware that the FR gods actually did anything, outside of the Time of Troubles. Sure, that sort of thing is very common in real-world pantheons, but when have the FR (or Greyhawk, or...) gods ever acted like a real-world pantheons?

 

[Steely Dan]

Whereas in 2E, FR retconned their cosmology to the Great Wheel

I believe 1st Ed Realms was part of the Great Wheel; it wasn’t until 3rd Ed where the cosmology changed to that tree business.

The classic 9 Hells (Avernus through Nessus/Cocytus) was a big part of the Realms, I even have an old Dragon mag with an article by Ed all about the Hells (the layers, lords, and their dukes and vassals etc).