Upgrade your account to a Community Supporter account and remove most of the site ads.

Reply to thread

Message: <blockquote data-quote="DamionW" data-source="post: 2648508" data-attributes="member: 18649">Arcanists, working with Clerics of some of the stronger old deities (Pelor, Boccob, Nerull, a few others) whose religions are fading, as well as bards holding on to old oral heritage are all outside of normal society.  They've retreated to wintery mountain fortresses and secluded temples and are secretly uniting and trying to subvert the elemental status quo.Basically, yes.  They have some care for their worshippers (Dwarves with Earth Elemental, Xorn and Thoqqua allies to help their digs have become economically more powerful than they ever were before the fusion, for example), but their classic struggles that spilled over from the Inner Planes have prejudices that never will fully heal.  For the last few centuries, things had calmed down.  The Realms of the Fire Lords have turned into an internal stuggle, where orcs, efreet, salamanders and azers have been fighting for dominance to such an extent that the Water Lords haven't needed to worry about them.  The Earth and Air societies still skirmish, but they're not full blown conflicts the way they used to be.  Unbeknownst to the PCs, the arcanists are about to tip this scale back into conflict in order to sow distraction for their cause.  Meanwhile, they're breeding an army of golems to bolster their ranks.Fire can cleanse, and water can drown, I am just choosing (call it designer fiat) to have them focus away from those properties.  Call it a spin, but not a change.  As for what the paladin upholds, he upholds creation against destruction, and he defends those too weak to defend themselves.Players will be told by the DM the stigma attached to Arcane magic and how if they start casting magic missles, they better have a good cover story.  If they're still set on it, then they're free to proceed.  However, they're not going to be privy to the plot arcs common to arcane organizations; they'll be freelancers.  They'll be hunting old ruins for tomes and scrolls, but they'll have a tough time with it.  There aren't active inquisitions.  Again, the Elemental Lords are too focused on their traditional conflicts of Fire vs. Water and Earth vs. Air to spur their clerics into an inquisition.Hadn't decided, but would assume new magic items will be more divine than arcane.  There's be +X weapons, but also more elemental abilities.  As for relative values, would think useful items are useful items to adventurers, but commonfolk would look less kindly upon old arcane items, wondering how they got them.As for monsters, there will be a subset of the typical ones from the monster manual, especially those who could fit an elemental bent (aquatic ones in the water realms, flying ones in the wind lands, subterranean ones in the earth digs, and fire subtypes in the fire lands), as well as an influx of Inner Plane immigrants (many genies, elementals freely walking the world without being summoned, etc.).  Their agenda is as it usually is, to either just survive or hoard power and treasure.  They simply will be doing it in a drastically different environment.As for hands driving it, each group/culture is going to drive it as they see fit.  There was no single entity running the show, it was a set of interests clashing themselves.  That's the overall view of the world.</blockquote>

Verification