SPECTRE666
Adventurer
http://forums.gleemax.com/showpost.php?p=14733236&postcount=2053 
[sblock=Rich]Hi, Rin --
We're not actually building a world out of the "core" setting. In a sense, the core setting is simply a collection of proper names, artifacts, and legends we expect many generic D&D games to share. This has always been true to some degree; even back in 1st Edition, just about *every* campaign every DM ran assumed that Corellon Larethian put out Gruumsh's eye, that the drow fought the other elves and were driven underground, that Acererak the lich created a Tomb of Horrors somewhere on the planet, or that the Rod of Seven Parts was lying around someplace waiting to be found.
The big new thing in the "fluff" of 4e D&D is that we're not tethering these names and stories to the world of Greyhawk; we've created a new skeleton of linked assumptions (proper names, artifacts, stories) to anchor the fluff of the "implied" setting. Since we're telling a story that tieflings are the descendants of a ruling elite from a human empire that made pacts with devils, we might as well attach a "placeholder" name to it. Some DMs will use the name Bael Turath; other DMs will make up their own infernal empire. But "Bael Turath" looks nice than "[insert your chosen name here]".
Now, for my own part, I favor the idea of sketching a simple map of that setting and thinking up a name for it. But many of my colleagues feel that doing so would simply replicate the Greyhawk phenomenon, and make it harder for DMs who build their own worlds to use the material we're creating. (So far, I've lost that argument; hey, it happens!) The idea is to create just enough flavor to have interesting proper names and links for DMs to pick up and use, without dictating how their worlds have to go together.
All of that is not really relevant to the Forgotten Realms, of course; the Realms is an example of a specific world that is not beholden to core stories, names, or flavor. So there isn't a Bael Turath in Toril's past... but we do suggest that ancient Narfell might have been the place where tieflings first appeared in Faerun.
Does that help to clarify what we're doing with the "core setting?"[/sblock]
[sblock=Rich]Hi, Rin --
We're not actually building a world out of the "core" setting. In a sense, the core setting is simply a collection of proper names, artifacts, and legends we expect many generic D&D games to share. This has always been true to some degree; even back in 1st Edition, just about *every* campaign every DM ran assumed that Corellon Larethian put out Gruumsh's eye, that the drow fought the other elves and were driven underground, that Acererak the lich created a Tomb of Horrors somewhere on the planet, or that the Rod of Seven Parts was lying around someplace waiting to be found.
The big new thing in the "fluff" of 4e D&D is that we're not tethering these names and stories to the world of Greyhawk; we've created a new skeleton of linked assumptions (proper names, artifacts, stories) to anchor the fluff of the "implied" setting. Since we're telling a story that tieflings are the descendants of a ruling elite from a human empire that made pacts with devils, we might as well attach a "placeholder" name to it. Some DMs will use the name Bael Turath; other DMs will make up their own infernal empire. But "Bael Turath" looks nice than "[insert your chosen name here]".
Now, for my own part, I favor the idea of sketching a simple map of that setting and thinking up a name for it. But many of my colleagues feel that doing so would simply replicate the Greyhawk phenomenon, and make it harder for DMs who build their own worlds to use the material we're creating. (So far, I've lost that argument; hey, it happens!) The idea is to create just enough flavor to have interesting proper names and links for DMs to pick up and use, without dictating how their worlds have to go together.
All of that is not really relevant to the Forgotten Realms, of course; the Realms is an example of a specific world that is not beholden to core stories, names, or flavor. So there isn't a Bael Turath in Toril's past... but we do suggest that ancient Narfell might have been the place where tieflings first appeared in Faerun.
Does that help to clarify what we're doing with the "core setting?"[/sblock]
