Shining South regional sup for FR end of 2004

JPL · Apr 5, 2004

Halruaa would be an awsome base of operations.

How do the PCs adapt in a land where everyone [well, 1/3 of the population, anyway] knows magic?

VorpalBunny · Apr 5, 2004

Cool. Looking forward to rules for Halruaan airships. And oooh... the Dambrathi drow.

Mmmmm..... Dambrath....

Arnwyn · Apr 5, 2004

Staffan said:
I'm just wondering when the heck they're going to do a Western Heartlands sourcebook.

I would suspect never - I'm pretty sure WotC has more sense than that.

It's one of the most interesting areas in the Realms, and the most detail it's gotten was one of Volo's travel guides.

Baloney. You must not have access to very many books.

The Western Heartlands have been pretty exhaustively detailed in these books:
- 2e FR Campaign Setting box set (every geographical feature & settlement)
- Volo's Guide to the Sword Coast (every settlement)
- Forgotten Realms Adventures (map and details of every city)
- 1e Old Grey box
- 3eFRCS
Every geographical feature and settlement in the Western Heartlands has been detailed already. An exclusive sourcebook is both unneccessary and a complete waste of WotC's limited resources, IMO.

As for Shining South - I'm not a fan of regurgitated material, but as noted by others, the details in FR16 was pretty weak (due to the large area covered by a 96 page accessory). Hopefully there will be more details in the (presumably) much larger hardcover.

If they have to regurgitate, I'm glad it's the Shining South that they chose (as opposed to anywhere in the Heartlands, which have been done to freakin' death).

So, count me as "pleased".

Pseudonym · Apr 5, 2004

I'm looking forward to this. A revisited treatment of Halruaa would be nice; I just hope they don't encorporate those awful Elaine Cunningham books into the suppliment.

Is there any word as to if they will expand the material beyond the lands covered in the original suppliment? Details on the Shaar and Lantan would be great, and this seems like as good a book as any to detail them in.

kuje31 · Apr 5, 2004

Pseudonym said:
I'm looking forward to this. A revisited treatment of Halruaa would be nice; I just hope they don't encorporate those awful Elaine Cunningham books into the suppliment.

Is there any word as to if they will expand the material beyond the lands covered in the original suppliment? Details on the Shaar and Lantan would be great, and this seems like as good a book as any to detail them in.

I know for a fact that WOTC has plans, either in a sourcebook, novel, or web article for 2 of these three nations, Nelanther, Lantan, and Nimbral.

Since I asked Ed about them about a week back and he said he can't talk about two of them right now because of the plans WOTC has for them and at a later date he can discuss the third one.

Staffan · Apr 5, 2004

arnwyn said:
The Western Heartlands have been pretty exhaustively detailed in these books:
- 2e FR Campaign Setting box set (every geographical feature & settlement)
- Volo's Guide to the Sword Coast (every settlement)
- Forgotten Realms Adventures (map and details of every city)
- 1e Old Grey box
- 3eFRCS
Every geographical feature and settlement in the Western Heartlands has been detailed already. An exclusive sourcebook is both unneccessary and a complete waste of WotC's limited resources, IMO.

The Western Heartlands have gotten coverage roughly equal to the North, the Dalelands, the Moonsea or Cormyr in the core FR sets so far. Using the 3e set as an example (because that's what I have available without checking ESDs), Cormyr gets 5 pages, the Dalelands 25, the Moonsea 6, the North 18, and the Western Heartlands 8. I'm pretty sure the proportion is somewhat similar in older editions. Yet, Cormyr, the Moonsea, the North, and the Dalelands get other expansions, but the Western Heartlands is left behind. I want to see something on the scale of the Silver Marches describing the Western Heartlands.

diaglo · Apr 6, 2004

Staffan said:
I want to see something on the scale of the Silver Marches describing the Western Heartlands.

edit: d'oh....http://www.faendalimas.com/BG_Mods/faerun.htm

take a look at this map.

now tell me that the areas on it haven't been done. at least individually i can name several.

waterdeep is in several sources..both in 1edADnD and 2edADnD as well as the North setting

anauroch has basically its own sourcebook also plus a whole setting if you count what they did to ALQ setting

sea of fallen stars had its own sourcebook

sword coast had a guide

cormyr had several. plus adventures. so did the dales.

vilhon was covered by a guide.

don't forget the tantras, hillsfar, zhentil keep adventures and computer material too....

NiTessine · Apr 6, 2004

Diaglo, I am looking at your map. Unfortunately, it is rather too small, and there is no Land of the Red X in FR.

The Western Heartlands is a rather more limited area than what you named. We'd be looking at the area bordered in the north by the Delimbiyr River Valley, in the east by the Stormhorn and Giant's Run Mountains, in the south by the Cloud Peaks and the Snakewood, and in the west by the sea. This area hasn't been under too much scrutiny outside of novels. We got Volo's Guide to the Sword Coast and the High Moor & Serpent Hills booklet for Elminster's Ecologies. Volo is always more intent on detailing taverns and inns than dungeons, and the EE booklet was rather narrow in focus.

So, yeah, there are areas on the map that haven't been done. The Greenfields, Baldur's Gate, Trollbark Forest, Marsh of Chelimber, Reaching Wood, Forest of Wyrms, Iriaebor, Elturel, Berdusk... Loads of places that haven't been visited for years, if at all.

And just as an aside... The only two things Al-Qadim had in common with Anauroch was that they are on the same planet, and both have a lot of sand.

diaglo · Apr 6, 2004

NiTessine said:
And just as an aside... The only two things Al-Qadim had in common with Anauroch was that they are on the same planet, and both have a lot of sand.

didn't at least one of the Harper series novels merge these two ideas?