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Message: <blockquote data-quote="The Dungeon Nazi" data-source="post: 207270" data-attributes="member: 4520">Well, AD&D used FR as its "default setting," and a lot of FR authors use it to define certain aspects of the setting, especially Salvatore and his Menzoberranzan.  First and foremost is Narbondel, the huge spire in the middle of the city that all the infravision-using drow use as a clock -- at midnight (I think), a wizard casts a spell on the formation (which rises up out of the ground and connects to the ceiling miles above the city, so I don't know if it's classified as a stalactite or a stalacmite) which heats up the base.  Any drow can look at it, see the heat radiating from the base and tell that it's midnight.  The ring of heat moves up to the top gradually (reaching the ceiling at noon), and then travels back down at the same rate until it hits the base again, dissipates, and the wizard casts the spell again.In addition, the city includes magic cast on buildings solely for beautification -- little stuff, such as surfaces that may heat and cool for the effect the infravision-based user will see, a gradual fading of dark blues to vibrant reds and oranges and back again.The drow of Menzoberranzan also carry around small, magically-heated disks of metal that they can use to flash morse-code-type signals to each other when in the presence of a non-infravision-based enemy.Cool little things like that are the kinds of flavor I'm talking about.As for my new half-glaive-wielding PC, he originally wanted to import his entire character from his old campaign, but once I told him that everybody was starting from 1st level, he dropped that line and started arguing for his weapon.  I told him I'd allow him to purchase a masterwork version, or, if he picked a region where his extra starting gear included a masterwork weapon, he could substitute his half-glaive for it.Since I haven't heard from him since, I'm beginning to think that the only reason he wants a half-glaive at all is because he wants *his* half-glaive, with all of its properties, including the drow make.  I specifically said to the guy, "I never said you can't have it -- I said you'll have to work for it and earn it," but he doesn't seem to want to go with that idea, since he shot down the notion that the party wizard could eventually help him construct it (even using the cheaper hold-person/hold-monster idea).He keeps insisting it's not for his own character to be l33t, or even so he can be the guy who steps up and pulls the party's collective ass out of the fire time and time again -- it's just that, according to him, the party's survival might depend on him having that weapon and it could be the one variable that tips the scales in their favor.I don't get it either.What I didn't tell him, but probably should have, is that if he was a first-level PC running around with a weapon like that, he'd already have caught the attention of every Cultist, Zhent, Halruuan and Thayvian within 50 miles, and he would've been slain and have been relieved of "Medusa's Gaze" long before setting foot in Shadowdale.</blockquote>

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