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Message: <blockquote data-quote="mearls" data-source="post: 5237577" data-attributes="member: 697">Kind of. On one hand, you can easily have the situation you describe. On the other, the "canonical" descriptions from core 2e were one of the things that helped make Darksun so interesting. If you accept that halflings are pastoral Shire-folk, then recasting them as cannibalistic fiends makes them more interesting.For one of the books I'm currently working on, I tried to define to the freelancers the difference between useful detail and pointless detail. It comes down to this:Good detail exists on its own. It ends at the edge of whatever it describes. It doesn't rely on anything outside of it unless it absolutely must. If you look at the arcanian or chitine entries from MM 3, they show off that concept fairly well.For instance, the arcanians have bizarre, warped motivations based on the magic that killed and reanimated them. Those motivations don't rely on any outside flavor, like gods, geography, or history. I think they help make arcanians interesting and flavorful (though I'm biased!) but it doesn't cement them into a larger picture. It leaves that up to the DM.From the chitine entry, there's a mention of a shifter that tricked a chitine tribe into believing that she was an aspect of Lolth. Aside from the deity mention, that story doesn't establish any real history. It simply illustrates that the chitines have a combination of religious fanaticism and naivete that characters can exploit.Again, the chitines are fleshed out, but they aren't too heavily lodged into a specific history. They have ties to the drow and Lolth, but that's changed easily enough.Ideally, a monster or other game element that's intended to work on its own tells its own story. It doesn't lean so heavily on other elements that it's nonsensical without them.</blockquote>

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