earthsea_wizard
Explorer
I have been aware of this setting since the time it was in print for 3e and never gave it any attention. All these years later I am reading through the material and falling in love with it!
The aesthetic and tone I'm getting is a mix of Dying Earth, Diablo, Wilderlands, Ravenloft, Elric, Warhammer Fantasy, Dark Sun, Conan and Zothique. This is not surprising I suppose given it is a White Wolf/Sword & Sorcery project and Anthony Pryor (Dark Sun, Lankhmar, Greyhawk, 3e Ravenloft) worked on a lot of it, but somehow I never got past the "titans vs gods" greek thing which didn't attract me. It turns out this is the extent of the Greekness in the lore.
Now some of it is certainly over the top and on the nose for my tastes (1001 Shelzarian Nights
), and you can tell they are reacting to something given the time period and the state of gaming at the time (white wolf folks coming into D&D land in 1999 while 2e is at its height to show us how they'd do it?...what can we expect), and I am not sure the sentiment aged well, but I am enjoying the dive-in. According to fans it seems that the products started to go downhill after the 3e>3.5 transition. These days I also think 3e is (mostly) better than 3.5 when it comes to flavor and the approach to the game.
Reading it through, I have two concerns:
1. Adapting modules to this setting. It isn't as different as Dark Sun but it does have very specific flavor. Almost no modules were published for it (strange as there are almost 40 publications in total between 3e and 3.5).
2. I am reading about some the cities that are explored with their own books. Places like Mithril and (especially) Hollowfaust are super unique, flavorful, work so well in the setting and seem like they can really "wow" playrers. I wonder if there would be an issue of then traveling to any of the many other cities that were not detailed (or hardly detailed) and finding that they feel mundane with out a VERY creative DM who can nail the setting. In Greyhawk or the Realms you can just wing another medieval city and it won't seem out of place, but the cities that were detailed in SL really set the bar high!
But perhaps each of the cities has enough written about it throughout the books for a DM to make it interesting and I just haven't read enough yet.
Any thoughts, opinions are anecdotes on the above or the setting in general? I know some later editions saw a few publications. I had a look and they just don't draw me in the same way, but I imagine they are useful for pulling info from.
The aesthetic and tone I'm getting is a mix of Dying Earth, Diablo, Wilderlands, Ravenloft, Elric, Warhammer Fantasy, Dark Sun, Conan and Zothique. This is not surprising I suppose given it is a White Wolf/Sword & Sorcery project and Anthony Pryor (Dark Sun, Lankhmar, Greyhawk, 3e Ravenloft) worked on a lot of it, but somehow I never got past the "titans vs gods" greek thing which didn't attract me. It turns out this is the extent of the Greekness in the lore.
Now some of it is certainly over the top and on the nose for my tastes (1001 Shelzarian Nights
), and you can tell they are reacting to something given the time period and the state of gaming at the time (white wolf folks coming into D&D land in 1999 while 2e is at its height to show us how they'd do it?...what can we expect), and I am not sure the sentiment aged well, but I am enjoying the dive-in. According to fans it seems that the products started to go downhill after the 3e>3.5 transition. These days I also think 3e is (mostly) better than 3.5 when it comes to flavor and the approach to the game.Reading it through, I have two concerns:
1. Adapting modules to this setting. It isn't as different as Dark Sun but it does have very specific flavor. Almost no modules were published for it (strange as there are almost 40 publications in total between 3e and 3.5).
2. I am reading about some the cities that are explored with their own books. Places like Mithril and (especially) Hollowfaust are super unique, flavorful, work so well in the setting and seem like they can really "wow" playrers. I wonder if there would be an issue of then traveling to any of the many other cities that were not detailed (or hardly detailed) and finding that they feel mundane with out a VERY creative DM who can nail the setting. In Greyhawk or the Realms you can just wing another medieval city and it won't seem out of place, but the cities that were detailed in SL really set the bar high!
But perhaps each of the cities has enough written about it throughout the books for a DM to make it interesting and I just haven't read enough yet.
Any thoughts, opinions are anecdotes on the above or the setting in general? I know some later editions saw a few publications. I had a look and they just don't draw me in the same way, but I imagine they are useful for pulling info from.
