Returned Abeir "Continent"

[Mercurius]

I have a feeling that the 4E version of the Forgotten Realms will be kind of like Superman 3 or, hopefully, X-Men 3...the next version (5E) will just pretend it never happened.

Or, alternately, WotC could come out with a "Classic Realms" box set written by, and only by, Ed Greenwood that would turn back the clock to the original grey box set and be the canonical Greenwood Forgotten Realms with more from his personal campaign and all the TSR/WotC added stuff removed.

 

[Dragonblade]

I think the 4e team should put out a comprehensive world atlas that includes EVERYTHING. The best part of the Realms back in 2e was the fact that they had fantasy analogs of ancient real world cultures and most of the world was mapped.

I'm really tired of fantasy worlds that include only a single continent consisting of pseudo-European cultures. I want a setting that encompasses a whole world with fantasy analogs for ancient and medieval Earth cultures with tons of detailed maps. Sadly, such a setting does not exist.

Kara-Tur, Maztica, Zakhara, these are all fantastic places, each one worthy of a setting book in its own right. It was awesome that 2e printed those settings and its a shame that 4e has not.

Returned Abeir is a neat idea but it should NEVER have replaced Maztica. Having the fantasy analog to conquistadors and the New World is rife with possibilities for story, adventure, and intrigue. Returned Abeir falls far short, IMO of what Maztica offered. The same goes for Kara-Tur as well. Having a complete and well developed Asian setting that fits into the world allowed me to run a Marco Polo-esque campaign back in the day that was amazing. But instead the 3e team opted to release Oriental Adventures using Rokugan. I hate Rokugan.

What a wasted opportunity, IMO. And also no Al-Qadim? Again, what a waste.

I'm ok with the Spellplague and accelerating the timeline in 4e. I'm ok with a restored Netheril replacing Anauroch. I'm even ok with the idea of Returned Abeir. But having it replace Maztica bugs me and the lack of a world atlas that includes everything is just depressing.

 

[Mercurius]

Or someone could come out with a fantasy version of Earth with various ages and cultures combined into one time, then let actual fantasy secondary worlds be just that: fantasy otherworlds, not fantasy versions of the real world.

I get tired of yet-another-fantasy-setting with this-and-that real world analog. Why go that route at all? If one wanted a fantasy Egypt or China why not just play a game in a fantasy version of our own world? This goes for Medieval settings as well; the qualities I like about the Forgotten Realms or Golarion or Greyhawk etc, are exactly those qualities that haven't existed in the real world. That pleasant "Realmsian vibe" is not its correlation to the real world, but its Greenwoodisms. Sure, the Dalelands were influenced by Medieval European culture, but they aren't a direct analog.

 

[Achan hiArusa]

That already exists and was done better than Greenwood could ever do:

Tékumel :: The World of the Petal Throne

but try getting people to play. Its not all that easy. I've thought about putting Tsolyanu next to my European analog to see if that would make it more interesting.

 

[Henry]

I do have one question: How many people reading this thread either have, or know someone who has, played a Maztica campaign in the past ten years? Either the PCs visited, or the campaign was centered there?

As a game setting, it just had very little draw, from my recollection, as cool as the idea was conceptually. I hazard a guess they wanted to replace it with something that someone might want to set a campaign in, or have PCs visit.

 

[I'm A Banana]

As a game setting, it just had very little draw, from my recollection, as cool as the idea was conceptually. I hazard a guess they wanted to replace it with something that someone might want to set a campaign in, or have PCs visit.

I played a 3e campaign in a pseudo-south-america, all feathered dragons and sun-emperors.

It wasn't Maztica, though. It was probably about as Maztica as Rokugan is Kara-Tur.

IMO, the legends and myths of Mezoamerica and South America are entirely deserving of D&D-style love, but I'd prefer them to be dedicated, like Nyambe, and not a one-off for Elminster and Drizzit to go play Colonialism Sucks for a few months.

FR always had a mythic earth feel, which was part of its appeal, I think. Returned Aebir does nothing to enhance that, and the Spellplague was more fun when I did it the first time as Cthulu Comes To Town. Maztica and the rest deserve a brief mention, but probably not much more than that. Returned Aebir should just go away. It's not like FR didn't have room for Dragonborn in its cavalcade of races and sub-races already. The thing just seems grossly unnecessary.

 

[Dragonblade]

I do have one question: How many people reading this thread either have, or know someone who has, played a Maztica campaign in the past ten years? Either the PCs visited, or the campaign was centered there?

As a game setting, it just had very little draw, from my recollection, as cool as the idea was conceptually. I hazard a guess they wanted to replace it with something that someone might want to set a campaign in, or have PCs visit.

How could they? Maztica has been out of print for almost 20 years. And even when it was in print it wasn't exactly easy to find, and TSR's marketing was horrible.

All of their stuff was focused on Faerun and everything else was an afterthought. All of their other settings were compartmentalized into obscurity. Really, they should have had more crossover from the start. In their Faerunian adventure modules, they should have included more exotic and mysterious NPCs from say Zakhara or Kara-Tur. Hint at the wondrous world beyond. Why is that Red Wizard of Thay importing mysterious and exotic spices from Zakhara? Why is a lich from Kara-Tur suddenly interfering in Cormyrean politics? The PCs free a djinn in Undermountain who promises a great reward if the PCs can track down his former master, lost years ago in the vast sands of the Zakharan desert thus setting off an epic trek across the globe. Huge possibilities!

The Legend of El-Dorado and the Cities of Gold could have been used as inspiration for an awesome clash of cultures style campaign where Faerunian treasure hunters clash with native Maztican cultures. Eberron got it right with the whole Xen'Drik as the mysterious continent with danger filled jungle ruins, fierce tribes, and ancient magic that calls to explorers from more "civilized" lands. This is the model they should have used for Maztica. The key is to integrate their settings, not compartmentalize and separate the settings which essentially relegated them all to oblivion.

We don't need yet another Underdark sourcebook, or another Silver Marches sourcebook. There is value in those products but lets flesh out the rest of the world first and make it an exciting and dynamic place rife with possibilities for epic adventures and treks to exotic lands far away.

 

[Achan hiArusa]

There was a City of Gold adventure:

http://www.wizards.com/dnd/files/tsr9349.zip

And the other Maztican stuff can be found here:

http://www.wizards.com/dnd/files/tsr1066.zip
http://www.wizards.com/dnd/files/tsr9333.zip
http://www.wizards.com/dnd/files/tsr9340.zip

But it is true, about all most of my players wanted from Oriental Adventures in 2nd Edition were the martial arts rules and ninjas.

 

[Dragonblade]

There was a City of Gold adventure:

http://www.wizards.com/dnd/files/tsr9349.zip

And the other Maztican stuff can be found here:

http://www.wizards.com/dnd/files/tsr1066.zip
http://www.wizards.com/dnd/files/tsr9333.zip
http://www.wizards.com/dnd/files/tsr9340.zip

But it is true, about all most of my players wanted from Oriental Adventures in 2nd Edition were the martial arts rules and ninjas.

Very nice that those downloads can still be found. Now lets get this into 4e. Lets revise it and make it more compelling. Look at what Eberron did with Stormreach being the gateway to exotic Xen'drik and do the same for Maztica. Give the Faerunian cultures a compelling reason to visit there. A maguffin that serves the same purpose that the dragonshards and lost relics do in Eberron and then integrate it closely into the core setting the same way they did with Returned Abeir being integrated tightly into core Realms by making it the homeland of the Dragonborn and even dropping one Abeir nation smack dab in the middle of Faerun (though that was a bit of a kludgy approach).

Paizo is taking this approach with Golarion to much success. Make a big world full of exciting places to visit, and then churn out sourcebooks and adventure paths that give the players a reason to vist all these exotic places and facilitates the DM in taking them there. The more that players and DMs want to go to these places, the more books and adventures they sell, and more books and adventures in turn fuels the desire of players to go there and DMs to run it. Its a great model. The key is integration. Make it one dynamic, interconnected, and living world.

 

[Mercurius]

That already exists and was done better than Greenwood could ever do:

Tékumel :: The World of the Petal Throne

but try getting people to play. Its not all that easy. I've thought about putting Tsolyanu next to my European analog to see if that would make it more interesting.

There are a fair number of fantasy settings that aren't focused on Medieval Europe and other real-world-analogs: Talislanta, Jorune, Dark Sun, Everway, the Scarred Lands, Planescape, even Eberron. But I'm not simply talking about "weird fantasy" like Tekumel, the problem of which is that it is too weird, too exotic. Tekumel would be great to visit in a campaign, but maybe not so great to play in.

Much of the Forgotten Realms, while being very familiar, isn't directly analogical. Actually, most of Greenwoodian Faerun - it is not as much Medieval Europe as it is quintessential D&D Land. Waterdeep (or Greyhawk, for that matter) are not realistic Medieval cities, but they are classic D&D cities.

I'm a huge fan of Talislanta but I enjoy it more as an art piece and a place to visit through reading sourcebooks than a favored world to play to play in. I'm less of a fan of Tekumel, but it is the same general idea. I think it is a combination of being too exotic but also lacking those classic D&D archetypes that most of us grew up with.