Settling the Anarouch/Great Glacier debate.

[wingsandsword]

I always found it funny when people mocked the Forgotten Realms for lack of geographic realism.

Besides the fact that Anauroch is a huge desert stretching a big north-south swath of the continent, being hot and more sandy at the bottom and becoming colder and rockier at the top, with the entire thing created by magical interference (along with said glacier).

Now in the larger sense of the world, I've had friends get angry that the placement of mountains and the general terrain makes no sense by conventional geography/geology. That no world would ever naturally occur like that

Ahem: "Of course not!"

It's a fantasy world, created only ~30,000 years ago by the direct actions of deities, it has an intelligent, active deity as the embodiment of it, shaping it and giving it form. It has had great magics tear across the land, literally ripping a chunk out of a continent to create an island chain (Evermeet and the Moonshaes), it's had countless interferenes by deities, archmages, elementals, genies, and weird abominations.

It's long been a well established rule of the Forgotten Realms that some parts of chemistry and physics don't work exactly the same (gunpowder vs. smokepowder), and I'm about 99% sure I read in Greenwood's writings that microchips and integrated circuits don't work on Toril either.

I always found that about as silly as the spell "Articus's Devolutionary Warrior" in the 2nd Edition book Chronomancer, that turns the caster into a primitive, less evolved version of himself from the past, but it doesn't work on elves because they were created in their current form instead of evolving. So TSR wanted to say that every fantasy race other than Elves (of course, this was the Complete Elves Handbook era) were evolved from early primates into their current form. Why must fantasy worlds always include evolution and millions/billions of years of geological progress?

If you can accept that clerics cast spells granted by deities that actually exist (the D&D norm), Wizards and Sorcerers can cast mighty spells that can rework the landscape (Disintegrate, Transmute Rock to Mud, Limited Wish/Wish, Wall of Stone), if Druids can reshape the weather in an area and magically enhance plant growth, why is it so hard to accept that creationism in your D&D game and the idea that not everything works exactly according to the scientific laws we know.

 

[Davelozzi]

It has had great magics tear across the land, literally ripping a chunk out of a continent to create an island chain (Evermeet and the Moonshaes)

I've never heard of that being the origin of Evermeet and the Moonshaes. Where's it from?
Just curious.

 

[Stone Angel]

I had the hardest time explaining this to my players. They just didn't understand that it is so vast that it spans many different climates. Ugggh


The Seraph of Earth and Stone

 

[kuje31]

I've never heard of that being the origin of Evermeet and the Moonshaes. Where's it from?
Just curious.

The Evermeet novel which ties in with the history given in Cormanthyr:Empire of the Elves sourcebook. The High Magic ritual they used is also in Cormanthyr in the High Magic section near the back.

 

[Prince of Happiness]

I'd have to say, I've always dislike Anauroch. If the focus was more on the savage cold parts, I might feel that it fit better, but as it is I always felt like they just threw it in there so you could use your desert-based adventure modules without making everyone treck across the continent.

But the realism factor doesn't bother me, because it is clearly indicated that the main reason for the desert's existence is magic.

For me, the Anauroch products were disappointments by focusing on this Bedouin-esqe culture, when there's already The Empires of the Sands. I would have wished that they explored the possibility of taking a pseudo-European medieval culture and adapting it to desert living. The other thing that's annoying is that it was created by maaaaaaaaaaaaaagic, when that's been done a bajizilliongoogleplex times before.

The other thing that annoyed me was that Anauroch was never as fully intergrated into the setting (well, until more recently, but I have to ask...why wouldn't the Bedine just swarm out and take over more attractive lands? The Arabs did just that so, why not?).

Great Glacier? I got that supplement too...the whole Inuit analogue wasn't too thrilling (as again, I was hoping for something more fantastic) and the teeth gritting moment when I realized that Sossal was barely touched upon (back when I used to be a walking Realms repository).

 

[Gez]

(well, until more recently, but I have to ask...why wouldn't the Bedine just swarm out and take over more attractive lands? The Arabs did just that so, why not?)

For the same reason you have 47 blends of elves. It's all a question of niche, specialization, and speciation. The Bedine hope to become the "Desert Human" subrace before the Calishite do. It's all a big race to speciation. They betted five kegs of beer on that, too, so it's serious competition.

 

[Prince of Happiness]

For the same reason you have 47 blends of elves. It's all a question of niche, specialization, and speciation. The Bedine hope to become the "Desert Human" subrace before the Calishite do. It's all a big race to speciation. They betted five kegs of beer on that, too, so it's serious competition.

"Yeah, it's a s***ty wasteland, but dammit, we eke out a meager existence well!"

 

[Umbran]

The other thing that's annoying is that it was created by maaaaaaaaaaaaaagic, when that's been done a bajizilliongoogleplex times before.

Oh, as if creating climate and terrain through natural means hasn't been done more often?

In gaming, it's more like it has been done many times since. The FR Cyclopedia is back from 1987. TSR had done similar stuff once before - with the Invoked Devastation and Rain of Colorless Fire destroying an empire and creating the Sea of Dust in Greyhawk. How many popular game worlds were out there before FR to have such a feature?

 

[The Grumpy Celt]

Well, it won't be a problem much longer at any rate. The shades are working to melt the thing. Their current plot involved thousands of space-heaters scattered all across the glacier...

 

[VirgilCaine]

Yeah, it's so unusual that there's this big desert next to this terminally cold area. That's nothing like the proximity of Siberia and the Gobi desert, for instance...

Or Tibet and the Taklamakan.

Yeah, it's simply impossible for there to be a desert right next to a glacier...

Good point.

I always found that about as silly as the spell "Articus's Devolutionary Warrior" in the 2nd Edition book Chronomancer, that turns the caster into a primitive, less evolved version of himself from the past, but it doesn't work on elves because they were created in their current form instead of evolving. So TSR wanted to say that every fantasy race other than Elves (of course, this was the Complete Elves Handbook era) were evolved from early primates into their current form. Why must fantasy worlds always include evolution and millions/billions of years of geological progress?

If you can accept that clerics cast spells granted by deities that actually exist (the D&D norm), Wizards and Sorcerers can cast mighty spells that can rework the landscape (Disintegrate, Transmute Rock to Mud, Limited Wish/Wish, Wall of Stone), if Druids can reshape the weather in an area and magically enhance plant growth, why is it so hard to accept that creationism in your D&D game and the idea that not everything works exactly according to the scientific laws we know.

So....why would I want to turn into a caveman?
I mean, come on, unless this is like a 3rd level spell, I'd much rather turn into an ogre or an athach or whatever else is better using Polymorph Self.
And even if the spell is only 3rd level, what am I going to get? Strength increase?