What 4e Fluff do you Like?

[Keefe the Thief]

The whole Underdark book is pure gold - a unending stream of fluff enriching any campaing.
My favourite part are the Grells who only eat people they CONVINCE THAT THIS IS A GOOD IDEA.
Seriously, how awesome is that?

Another thing i like is Nerath: the empire has fallen, and many communities that hated it and its oppressive government are suddenly struggling to stay alive. When i first heard that concept, i could see the arrogant citypeople who always conspired agains the nerathi governors huddle around a fire or looking out of their windows at thousands of fires in the night. And listening to the howl of the Gnolls as they promise Yeenoghu that they will drink the city-dwellers blood.

 

[Mustrum_Ridcully]

The great wheel was an actual mishmash mix of real world traditional myths. Greek Hades, Tarterous, and Olympus, Norse Gladsheim, Hell from Dante's Inferno, the Abyss as seen in Paradise Lost, etc. All the real world myth pantheons from Deities and Demigods were placed within it.

It was a mish-mash, but... it was different. It was not just "evoking" other concepts. It was outright using them. You have the Hades, the Olymp and Walhalla in one world, basically, instead of having something resembles these concepts without being exactly the same.

And on top of that, there was a lot of other stuff going on - the whole Chaos/Law/Good/Evil axis, quasi-elemental planes and so much more.

I agree, the 4ed cosmolgy is one of its strongest parts. And Munstrum's post summarizes why. It is fantastic and at the same time accessible.

This Munstrum guy seems very insightful, doesn't he, Harlequin?

 

[avin]

Just to clarify my former point (red noted by Pcat): people can't forget that I love 4E, I'm a DDI subscriber under this same name, I just dislike fluff, so I was far from trying to tread crap... was just a bad choice of words.

Probably there's a better way to put out the notion that, in my opinion, 4E's fluff is clearly aimed to a younger audience (easier words, less subtle stuff, cartoon art - which is probably deliberate to attract and refresh playerbase - and I am a father, so trying t explain something to a kid it's very distant to an insult to me hehehe). English not being my native language doesn't help when its time to say that in a gentle, smart, clever way that does not look like I'm crapping.

Back to it: I like Feywild and Shadowfell a lot, but renamed to Faerie and Plane of Shadow/ Umbra.

 

[Nifft]

This Munstrum guy seems very insightful, doesn't he, Harlequin?

I dunno, sometimes he says stuff that's ridcullyous.

Cheers, -- N

 

[Raven Crowking]

- Dwarves as miniature Giants. Hilarious and appropriate.

Thank you.

http://www.enworld.org/forum/general-rpg-discussion/137567-my-worlds-dwarves.html

 

[Mustrum_Ridcully]

I dunno, sometimes he says stuff that's ridcullyous.

Cheers, -- N

Not everything can be as niffty as the D&D fluff.

 

[MrMyth]

Indeed, not only does it harken to the Greek mythology's Gods vs. Titans, but also the Norse mythology's Gods vs. Jotun/Giants.

And that actually, for me, is one of the coolest things about it - how easy it is to weave elements of those mythology's into the 4E cosmology and have it feel entirely natural. I'm currently running an epic campaign involving the party facing off against Ymir, a reborn primordial, whose first death at the hands of Odin was rumored to be the start of the Dawn War. It might not be exactly how the Norse legends go, nor exactly match the Dawn War fluff - but it is close enough to work, and such events are already so shrouded in myth that any discrepencies are easily handwaved away.

 

[Hussar]

I dunno, sometimes he says stuff that's ridcullyous.

Cheers, -- N

Not everything can be as niffty as the D&D fluff.

You are both bad, bad men.

One bit of 4e fluff that I really like is the Warlock. Then again, I loved binders in 3e, so, it's not all that surprising. But, the warlock is, for me anyway, a really juicy character class with lots of flavour to bite into.

 

[The Little Raven]

I'm with most of the other people who love most of the 4e fluff, but in particular one thing stands out to me: Tharizdun. The Forgotten Temple was one of the first adventures I ever played through, so bringing him back with a much improved place in the grand scheme of things tickles my fancy.

 

[Voadam]

I like that driders are now divinely blessed drow champions of Lolth who get her form instead of being failures who were cursed with it.

I liked the original discussed design goal of having devils be humanoidish while demons were bestial, even though this only actually followed through with the succubus switching teams and there are still plenty of weapon wielding demons (balor) and monstrous devils (most all of them). I'm happy having demons be destruction focused while devils have other evil focused attributes (corruption, manipulation, cruelty, tyranny, etc.)