Scarred Lands: Ask the Sage [New and Improved!]

[JoeGKushner]

Termana

So what is your overall impression of Termana?

I like it but at the same time, have some trouble with it. The various elf empires are very cool, ranging from Melnibonean wanna bes with demon summoners and deacadent fools, to tired warriors waiting for the last battle.

I like the ghoul king bit. It's always good to have undead and their restless masters. I like the whole Blood Bayou bit and the Carnival. Very creepy. One day I do hope to see a mystic Carnival that isn't evil though.

I don't like the whole Charduni Empire bit though. They manage to take over almost all of Chelspad and couldn't even do it on their own country to two different parts. It's like their either really lucky when they moved west or really stupid on their home territory.

Unlike some, I like the whole psionic aspect and find it very interesting that they have so much material here that you could, don't have to, but could work into your campaign. I was a little disappointed at the lack of coverage on the various city states not covered in the countires though. No maps, no stat blocks on the cities and just a little too vague for me.

I don't like that you need the Gazatteer to get the stats for the PC races of the setting. Don't get me wrong, I know that that book is meant more as a PC supplement but as they talk about gnolls as PCs, having the actual stats in this book would've probably been a good thing.

Overall pretty interesting. One thing that seems very strange is none of the human nations really stood out from the rest. About the only one that i can recall off the top of my head is the Virduk's Promise (sp?) because its tied into tthe other setting.

 

[Will]

Me, I really liked the ushada stuff. It was an element I missed in Ghelspad. Not to say I think it should have been in Ghelspad... It makes a certain sense for a heavily civilized place where an empire had once ruled etc. for ooold ways to be forgotten.

But then, I'm a big fan of shamanistic type stuff.

 

[JoeGKushner]

I like the shaman stuff myself. I'll probably be using the shaman core class from Green Ronin to represent it though, as opposed to the druid taking on another role that's further from his original one.

The thing that bothers me is that the more stuff that comes out for the setting, the more inconsistant it becomes. The setting is sstill very young but there are now more 'issues' if you will with the history of the setting than there ever have been, but as the system gets older, I suspect that those issues will multiply.

The one thing I hope we see is new maps of the setting. Ed's internal maps in Termana are far better than the original one and I'd love to see him do a full map of Ghelspad as well. That would rock.

 

[Will]

Yeah, the inconsistencies bother me, too, and become troublesome as an author.

Though having worked on several things, I have to say, that's always going to be a problem for multiauthor works. There simply isn't time to keep everything focused.

If you _do_ have the Keeper of the setting, then you run into the danger of production slowing to a crawl so the person can look over/correct everything. You also run into possible dangers of ego (even under the most mature of folks) and vision.

But yeah, would be nice if it were tighter.

Oh, fairness note: I worked on Termana, but had nothing to do with the ushada. Just did some of the write-ups, like Sun Isle and Padrinola. Not my best stuff... not that it was bad, just not as cool and large-scale as stuff in Asaatthi and Blood Sea.

I think using shamans instead of druids sounds like a good idea. I suspect they were trying to avoid adding core classes, which always has some controversy.

Another possibility are the Spiritwalkers. I love that PrC.

 

[Trickstergod]

I don't like that you need the Gazatteer to get the stats for the PC races of the setting. Don't get me wrong, I know that that book is meant more as a PC supplement but as they talk about gnolls as PCs, having the actual stats in this book would've probably been a good thing.

Of some small consolation, gnoll PCs, along with terali and gnomes, are detailed in the Creature Collection Revised. So at least they're within one of the settings "core" books. Although, then again, the gnoll PC stat block suffers from a lack of understanding about level adjustment and a few other things...but the same applies to the Termana Gazetteer from which it was cut and pasted.

As for how memorable the human nations are...yeah, some were rather forgettable. Crilos, for example, didn't quite seem to come across as more than Albadia II. That it was founded by folk from Ghelspad didn't help out, either.

Oh, and Joe, while not 3rd edition, there is the Ravenloft supplement, Carnival, which is primarily fluff, anyway. It's run by Isolde, a ghaele eladrin in the form of a woman. For that non-evil carnival you asked for. It's probably the best Ravenloft supplement, and one of the better D&D ones.

As for Padrinola and the like, Will...well, something needn't be large scale to be cool. I think one of the best write-ups to come out of Termana was that on the Gray Isle, which is potentially one of the most low-key sections in the book. If anything, I find the more over the top something is, the greater the likelihood for logistic holes.

Funny enough, one of the things that's most been irking me about Termana recently is the write-up on the Eternal Isle mentioning how the dragons and elves started mating to more quickly breed soldiers, claiming that the children age like half-elves. Which isn't how it works, particularly when the other half is, you know, a dragon...but...so it goes.

 

[Nightfall]

Trick,

That was a little odd I'll grant you. But hey maybe dragons breed quicker with non dragons. Just an idea.

Joe,

I pretty much mirror your own sentiments, save that I like the Charduni as it. They are just damn unlucky. The shaman aspect and the lack of focus is a little disconcerting, but it is as Will said, you have a lot of authors trying to fill the pot, and each one making it a little different in their own way. I will say this though, this is only Termana, not Ghelspad. So it tends to be a little easier to deal with in that respect. But then again it's not the greatest answer I'll grant you.

Will,

I do agree that probably the reason there's no mention of a shaman's core class is most likely not to add controversy. (Course they could mention OA shaman along side what they already did in Secrets.)

 

[Will]

Er, I meant Silverisle... I did that writeup.

Joe: By large scale, I don't mean flying castles and the like (though I like flying castles...). Just having more room to do stuff.

Me, I like fiddly bits, like local architecture. Though I have to be careful. Too much of that can make people's eyes cross.

 

[Trickstergod]

Trick,

That was a little odd I'll grant you. But hey maybe dragons breed quicker with non dragons. Just an idea.

I'd figure a half-dragon would age more quickly than a dragon. That's just about a given.

However, they certainly wouldn't age more quickly than the base race. A half-dragon/half-elf would age either as fast as a normal elf, or slower.

 

[JoeGKushner]

Ah, the Gray Islands. What a cool little idea. A place of greatness brought low not by Titans, but by human treachery! However, it is one of those palces that bothered me with the white space and missing maps because right there on page 76-77, Emernis, City of Ashes has four little notes on it and a massive half page of white space where a city map probably should've been.

For the elves and dragons, I assumed upon the reading that they were grown magically, "brought swiftly to maturatity by their own natural growth and the magic of their parents." as opposed to just brought up naturally. I think that they gave a wink at the fact that the dragons did this in human form to give the children that 'false' parent maturity. In some ways it reminded me of that old crappy Spelljammer comic where a kid gets turned into a man or like Tom Hanks "Big". The kids can probably fight but would they be good for much else or know much else? MIght be easy to mess with.

 

[Nightfall]

Trick,

True but maybe Joe is onto something. Maybe they magically age their children, something the half fiends and their fiendish fellows have yet to figure out.