D&D 4E Tropes of the Nentir Vale

[doctorbadwolf]

Throw in the Conquest of Nerath map as a distant continent of the same world, nothing needs to be changed particularly.

I can’t even imagine how you could draw this conclusion.

 

[Parmandur]

I can’t even imagine how you could draw this conclusion.

I have to be honest, I'm really not sure what would be the difference: what conflict would there be at all?

 

[doctorbadwolf]

I have to be honest, I'm really not sure what would be the difference: what conflict would there be at all?

The entire history of pretty much every race, god, demon prince, arch devil, archfey, and cosmic horror, is different, for a start. The gods aren’t even as close to the same as they were in campaign one, and they weren’t the same then either.

It would be a massive jarring retcon to add a continent that has never heard of the betrayer gods, the age of arcanum, or the calamity, and who trace no common origin to Vasselheim, and no ties between its Dragonborn and the Draconian Dragonborn, for instance.

You could force it to live there, about as easily as forcing it to live in Toril.

 

[Parmandur]

The entire history of pretty much every race, god, demon prince, arch devil, archfey, and cosmic horror, is different, for a start. The gods aren’t even as close to the same as they were in campaign one, and they weren’t the same then either.

It would be a massive jarring retcon to add a continent that has never heard of the betrayer gods, the age of arcanum, or the calamity, and who trace no common origin to Vasselheim, and no ties between its Dragonborn and the Draconian Dragonborn, for instance.

You could force it to live there, about as easily as forcing it to live in Toril.

The gods section in the Wildemount book is nearly verbatim from the Tal'Dorei book from what I can see, but with the proper names that are WotC IP added. Nothing from what I can recall from the Nentir Vale stuff is incompatible with the Betrayer gods distinction, nor the Age of Arcanum. Just add it in, easy peasy lemon squeeze. It's not necessary to force it in, and I believe the Heroes of the Vale treated them as altenate Prime Material worlds in the same cosmos when they jumped to Wildemount, bit the same gods worked the same (same Pelor for Nentir Vale and Exandria). Either way, works just as well: far-off continent, alien planet.

 

[doctorbadwolf]

The gods section in the Wildemount book is nearly verbatim from the Tal'Dorei book from what I can see, but with the proper names that are WotC IP added. Nothing from what I can recall from the Nentir Vale stuff is incompatible with the Betrayer gods distinction, nor the Age of Arcanum. Just add it in, easy peasy lemon squeeze. It's not necessary to force it in, and I believe the Heroes of the Vale treated them as altenate Prime Material worlds in the same cosmos when they jumped to Wildemount, bit the same gods worked the same (same Pelor for Nentir Vale and Exandria). Either way, works just as well: far-off continent, alien planet.

No, thanks.

 

[Parmandur]

No, thanks.

No worries, don't do that, then: but it is quite doable. And I don't expect much else from WotC on that front.

 

[doctorbadwolf]

No worries, don't do that, then: but it is quite doable. And I don't expect much else from WotC on that front.

I mean...neither do I, but the idea that we won’t see a Nentir Vale book because of Wildemount is completely laughable.

We won’t see it because it’s the default setting of a decisive edition that they had to pretend to dislike at the start of this edition in order to sell it to the grognards, and basically none of the new players know what it even is.

If an actually popular show used it, as presented in the 4e books, they might see a market for a gazetteer made primarily by a 3pp. Had Mearls’ weird offshoot not gone off and been taken over by Kenreck, who is great but man taking over someone else’s game is hard, then maybe that weird offshoot would have seen print.

As it is, the best we can hope for is occasional shoutouts in sidebars, and maybe someday a dmsguild permission slip.

 

[Aldarc]

Have you read the Tal'Dorei or Wildemount books, or seen Critical Role, I apologize but I don't recall offhand if that has come up before...? Both of the books are very excellently set-up as fill in the blanks sandboxes with very light Gazeeter material.

I own both books. I have watched a bit of Critical Role, though I did not find it my thing. I mostly have talked about it with my gaming friends who enjoy it.

Vanishingly few people think of the Nentir Vale. Mearls tried to change that, at least.

Seems like a rude response to someone saying that the similarities that the two settings are diverging in the popular consciousnesses. But so far your contributions in this thread have been mostly peeing in everyone's cereal who likes the Nentir Vale setting so you can push Exandria by claiming that the Nentir Vale is redundant.

The cosmology/gods treatment of both settings are remarkably similar. The Prime Material Plane (nations, races, culture, geography) are completely different however.

This latter point is why I am resistant against just equivocating between the settings like @Parmandur is trying to do.

I would not mind, FWIW, putting Exandria in a shared multiverse with the Nentir Vale/Nerath, much as I would put a lot of settings that share the Great Wheel into a related multiverse. But IMHO, the Nentir Vale has a different tone as a setting than Exandria. Exandria shares some of the same beats and characters as the Vale, only in so far as the fact that it started as a 4e homebrew setting. However, the "feel" of Exandria seems more rooted in Matt Mercer's gaming history with Dragonlance and Forgotten Realms. The Nentir Vale, IMHO, seems rooted in Greyhawk (and Elsir Vale from Red Hand of Doom, which was almost the proto-Nentir Vale).

The gods section in the Wildemount book is nearly verbatim from the Tal'Dorei book from what I can see, but with the proper names that are WotC IP added. Nothing from what I can recall from the Nentir Vale stuff is incompatible with the Betrayer gods distinction, nor the Age of Arcanum. Just add it in, easy peasy lemon squeeze. It's not necessary to force it in, and I believe the Heroes of the Vale treated them as altenate Prime Material worlds in the same cosmos when they jumped to Wildemount, bit the same gods worked the same (same Pelor for Nentir Vale and Exandria). Either way, works just as well: far-off continent, alien planet.

Hot off the presses: "Dude who confessed not to be familiar with the Nentir Vale setting lore beyond the minimalist implied setting of the core books can't tell the difference between the lore of the gods in Nentir Vale and Exandria."

You know I can't tell the difference between the United States and Canada. They both speak predominately English on the North American continent and were started as British (with some intermingled French) colonies. And all those Spanish-speaking countries to the south of that? Practically identical. I guess they are all the same settings. Just like Austria and Germany.

 

[wingsandsword]

FR in particular has the whole Overgod concept that adds an extra layer of mystery that kind of points to gods just being really powerful mortals (are you really a god if you can die?)

Gods being able to die is a thing in the real world too. Both Egyptian, Norse and Greco-Roman mythologies certainly have the idea of Gods being able to die or of Gods being able to kill each other.

Also, the concept of an Overpower isn't exclusive to FR in D&D. Dragonlance has the Highgod filling the same role. Ao's just more well known because FR is a more popular setting than DL is now.

 

[Urriak Uruk]

Gods being able to die is a thing in the real world too. Both Egyptian, Norse and Greco-Roman mythologies certainly have the idea of Gods being able to die or of Gods being able to kill each other.

Also, the concept of an Overpower isn't exclusive to FR in D&D. Dragonlance has the Highgod filling the same role. Ao's just more well known because FR is a more popular setting than DL is now.

Honestly Dragonlance has the best usage of gods in all these settings... I love how even the good gods agreed throwing a meteor at the planet was a good idea.