| T O P I C R E V I E W |
| mastermustard |
Posted - 28 May 2023 : 21:59:51
Even 3.5E made a few retcons, but 4E attempted to reinvent the whole post-spellplague setting, deleting or rewriting a ton of established history. 5E changed a lot too, and it represents the era in which D&D transitioned from a niche hobby where writers and players joined in to create living, breathing worlds with historical consistency, to a commercialized product with mass appeal and a focus on gameplay, where lore is now something to be freely manipulated for the sake of selling an interesting product.
It's not unreasonable to consider the fifth edition, or possibly anything post 4E its own separate universe, right? Created for the sake of profit by Lord Ao's bosses at WOTC and Hasbro.
And yeah, I know we can do whatever we want. A lot of people have their own headcanon, especially with the dip in published material these past years. I guess I'm just bitter and want some consensus about where the Realms history should cut off. |
| 30 L A T E S T R E P L I E S (Newest First) |
| Wooly Rupert |
Posted - 10 Jun 2023 : 05:59:38
quote:
Originally posted by Zeromaru X
As for the twining of Abeir-Toril, I guess this legend is based on the "changing of the stars" from sarrukh records, and the Laerakondan legend of the "shadow of Ao", a powerful artifact that, according to the legend, has the power twin a world. The Candlekeep sages may have put two and two, and said that Ao twinned Abeir-Toril into to worlds. But, is this actually true? We may never know...
One thing that's long bugged me about the "changing of the stars" line is the assumption that it means everything in the heavens changed. But we don't know that. We have absolutely no information about how the stars changed.
The line certainly could mean a dramatic change in the heavens, with new stars or new stellar formations in place of the old ones... But it could also mean something as simple as looking into the sky one summer eve and seeing that the constellations that were there the night before are now in different places; it could even be that the stars and constellations of the winter sky have swapped positions with the summer sky. That's still a big deal, but it's not nearly as big a deal as the stars being entirely replaced with new ones. |
| Ayrik |
Posted - 10 Jun 2023 : 05:27:56
quote:
Originally posted by sleyvas
quote:
Originally posted by Ayrik
quote:
Originally posted by Returnip
... Just the massive time skip kills off pretty much every NPC that isn't an elf or a dwarf and along with them all their plots, agendas etc.
Off-topic ... I'll create a new scroll if it looks like this will derail things ...
But this seems to be the only relevant mention of elven/dwarven longevity in the game.
I mean, you make a character who is an elf or a dwarf (or some other race) which has longevity far beyond that of humans. This is great. You'll live for centuries! You can survive casting more of those spells or fighting more of those monsters which inflict aging.
But then what? What use is a long lifespan in a game which doesn't have an equally long timespan? Being able to live 500 more years is hardly important in an epic which only spans a decade or two.
This has become less important with newer editions as well. Haste used to age you. Ghosts used to age you. I think wishes maybe used to age you?
Haste, Wish, Limited Wish, Alter Reality, a variety of necromantic spells, some future-scrying/phrophecy spells, they all aged you.
Raising, resurrection, regeneration, restoration, and some other high-end healing/fixing spells would age both the caster and the recipient.
1E provided a sort of conversion chart which made the aging more of a proportional thing than an absolute thing. For example, an elf might have seven times the lifespan, but would suffer seven times the aging effects in game, would age 7 years while a human would age 1 year.
I understand that this aging mechanic has been greatly nerfed in subsequent editions. Reserved for only the most horrible things. |
| sleyvas |
Posted - 09 Jun 2023 : 21:08:14
quote:
Originally posted by Zeromaru X
quote:
Originally posted by sleyvas
For instance, this whole story that Ao copied the world, etc... exactly WHO is the source that's definitively able to say that THIS is what Ao did? Sages didn't know about Abeir until the spellplague for the most part, then basically they started listening to each others stories and trying to "figure out" what happened. I don't see Ao appearing to the people of the world and saying "let me give you a dissertation of what I just did to save you ants to me". Just like what exactly Ao did during the second sundering....
quote:
Forgotten Realms Campaign Guide, Chapter 2, History - page 42
The most common account of Toril’s prehistory traces its roots back to ancient Netheril. This popular human myth recounts the creation of the universe by Lord Ao and the epic struggle between the gods of light and darkness that followed. Only recently have other, more ancient legends come to light, recounted by the sarrukh of Okoth and echoed by the dragonborn of Returned Abeir. By combining common threads from both accounts, backed by diligent factfinding missions, scholars and historians of today have gained a clearer understanding of the creation of the universe.
The way I understand this, is that for a long time sages and scholars believed the Netherese records to be the actual history of the world, something that was unwise, as there are older civilizations than the Netherese out there.
So, when they discovered the sarrukh records, records of a civilization that predated Netheril, and then the dragonborn legends from Laerakond, and saw that these two sources coincided, they were at a loss because those sources mean the Netherese records weren't completely true. They had to search for points in common, perhaps reinterpreting stuff and the like, to try to create a new narrative that include the new information they discovered without invalidating the Netherese records.
As for the twining of Abeir-Toril, I guess this legend is based on the "changing of the stars" from sarrukh records, and the Laerakondan legend of the "shadow of Ao", a powerful artifact that, according to the legend, has the power twin a world. The Candlekeep sages may have put two and two, and said that Ao twinned Abeir-Toril into to worlds. But, is this actually true? We may never know...
Exactly, people had to throw together what they "figured out" happened, but what's true.
Just to throw out something .... we have ubtAO ... who is supposedly a PRIMORDIAL who betrayed his fellow primordials... who is also hinted heavily as possibly also being Qotal.... well this god ubtAO also split off a portion of himself... the shadow of ubtAO which became known as Eshowdow. This ubtAO supposedly created the jungles of Chult by binding himself to the land and pushing out all other pantheons... essentially making himself the "overgod" of this region.
Throw into all of this as well how much Ubtao / Qotal sound like Parrafaire as well if you really start digging into them... and Parrafaire was known for hiding the body of a powerful but dead god in the land. He's also known as "the Prince of Hidden Secrets"... almost like "the Hidden One"...
Not quite sure where exactly to take this, but the story hear just has a ring to it that "we don't quite have the whole truth of what's going on here". |
| Zeromaru X |
Posted - 09 Jun 2023 : 20:23:30
quote:
Originally posted by sleyvas
For instance, this whole story that Ao copied the world, etc... exactly WHO is the source that's definitively able to say that THIS is what Ao did? Sages didn't know about Abeir until the spellplague for the most part, then basically they started listening to each others stories and trying to "figure out" what happened. I don't see Ao appearing to the people of the world and saying "let me give you a dissertation of what I just did to save you ants to me". Just like what exactly Ao did during the second sundering....
quote:
Forgotten Realms Campaign Guide, Chapter 2, History - page 42
The most common account of Toril’s prehistory traces its roots back to ancient Netheril. This popular human myth recounts the creation of the universe by Lord Ao and the epic struggle between the gods of light and darkness that followed. Only recently have other, more ancient legends come to light, recounted by the sarrukh of Okoth and echoed by the dragonborn of Returned Abeir. By combining common threads from both accounts, backed by diligent factfinding missions, scholars and historians of today have gained a clearer understanding of the creation of the universe.
The way I understand this, is that for a long time sages and scholars believed the Netherese records to be the actual history of the world, something that was unwise, as there are older civilizations than the Netherese out there.
So, when they discovered the sarrukh records, records of a civilization that predated Netheril, and then the dragonborn legends from Laerakond, and saw that these two sources coincided, they were at a loss because those sources mean the Netherese records weren't completely true. They had to search for points in common, perhaps reinterpreting stuff and the like, to try to create a new narrative that include the new information they discovered without invalidating the Netherese records.
As for the twining of Abeir-Toril, I guess this legend is based on the "changing of the stars" from sarrukh records, and the Laerakondan legend of the "shadow of Ao", a powerful artifact that, according to the legend, has the power twin a world. The Candlekeep sages may have put two and two, and said that Ao twinned Abeir-Toril into to worlds. But, is this actually true? We may never know... |
| sleyvas |
Posted - 09 Jun 2023 : 19:32:58
quote:
Originally posted by zyzzyva
quote:
Originally posted by TBeholder
Some people clearly enjoy retrofitting. I'm reasonably sure it is possible to invent a convoluted chain of consequences for some of the RSE that shoehorns all the Bear Lore nonsense as its in-Universe results. But do you want to do this?
As someone who started out naively running my campaigns in the 5e timeframe without much of a sense of the timeline as a whole, figuring out ways address this is something I find an interesting challenge, though I can imagine it would be just frustrating for folks who want something more definitive. In general, I approach sourcebooks as historical sources--they're all describing something from a specific point of view, but the degree to which internal blind spots/personal bias cause certain points to be inaccurate or outright falsifications allows wiggle room where they contradict each other.
Yep, for me this is one of the fun things that has always been done with the realms. The designers that I like are almost always the ones that find things that are "wrong" and find some way to make them "right". For instance, this whole story that Ao copied the world, etc... exactly WHO is the source that's definitively able to say that THIS is what Ao did? Sages didn't know about Abeir until the spellplague for the most part, then basically they started listening to each others stories and trying to "figure out" what happened. I don't see Ao appearing to the people of the world and saying "let me give you a dissertation of what I just did to save you ants to me". Just like what exactly Ao did during the second sundering.... |
| sleyvas |
Posted - 09 Jun 2023 : 19:26:57
quote:
Originally posted by Ayrik
quote:
Originally posted by Returnip
... Just the massive time skip kills off pretty much every NPC that isn't an elf or a dwarf and along with them all their plots, agendas etc.
Off-topic ... I'll create a new scroll if it looks like this will derail things ...
But this seems to be the only relevant mention of elven/dwarven longevity in the game.
I mean, you make a character who is an elf or a dwarf (or some other race) which has longevity far beyond that of humans. This is great. You'll live for centuries! You can survive casting more of those spells or fighting more of those monsters which inflict aging.
But then what? What use is a long lifespan in a game which doesn't have an equally long timespan? Being able to live 500 more years is hardly important in an epic which only spans a decade or two.
This has become less important with newer editions as well. Haste used to age you. Ghosts used to age you. I think wishes maybe used to age you? |
| zyzzyva |
Posted - 09 Jun 2023 : 14:20:12
quote:
Originally posted by TBeholder
Some people clearly enjoy retrofitting. I'm reasonably sure it is possible to invent a convoluted chain of consequences for some of the RSE that shoehorns all the Bear Lore nonsense as its in-Universe results. But do you want to do this?
As someone who started out naively running my campaigns in the 5e timeframe without much of a sense of the timeline as a whole, figuring out ways address this is something I find an interesting challenge, though I can imagine it would be just frustrating for folks who want something more definitive. In general, I approach sourcebooks as historical sources--they're all describing something from a specific point of view, but the degree to which internal blind spots/personal bias cause certain points to be inaccurate or outright falsifications allows wiggle room where they contradict each other.
Hoping my next campaign will be some sort of historiographical escapade where the party is researchers at Candlekeep or some similar institution trying to make sense of the mess of the post-Spellplague timeline. I'm generally running with the idea that something happened in the post-Spellplague timeline that Ao did a temporal reset to avoid. In 'real time' then, the Spellplague years and the Second Sundering are actually the same event, and most of the 15th century didn't happen (though may still be remembered because of reasons.) Basically the idea is to allow a structure in which some important events that happened during the 4e chronology to be carried back or explained as effects of the Spellplague/Sundering (such as the eruption of Mount Hotenow) while consigning undesirable ones to the doomed post-Spellplague timeline (such as the destruction of Halruaa). Definitely creates an annoying chronological mess, but at least a more intriguing one than 100 years of largely missing history. |
| Ayrik |
Posted - 04 Jun 2023 : 16:28:22
quote:
Originally posted by Returnip
... Just the massive time skip kills off pretty much every NPC that isn't an elf or a dwarf and along with them all their plots, agendas etc.
Off-topic ... I'll create a new scroll if it looks like this will derail things ...
But this seems to be the only relevant mention of elven/dwarven longevity in the game.
I mean, you make a character who is an elf or a dwarf (or some other race) which has longevity far beyond that of humans. This is great. You'll live for centuries! You can survive casting more of those spells or fighting more of those monsters which inflict aging.
But then what? What use is a long lifespan in a game which doesn't have an equally long timespan? Being able to live 500 more years is hardly important in an epic which only spans a decade or two. |
| Wooly Rupert |
Posted - 04 Jun 2023 : 16:06:35
quote:
Originally posted by Returnip
On a side note, I don't find the cosmology changes from 2e to 3.x to be that much of an issue. I have both views coexisting. That way I can have different schools of scientists argue about which is correct. 
It's possible for both structures to coexist; indeed, by definition, something infinite can't exist in any sort of structure. So there's no problem saying that some people see the planes as a Tree and others as a Wheel.
But that wasn't all they did. They moved deities around, changed the planes themselves, and changed how planar travel even works. They changed it from a planar structure that accommodates the other campaign settings to one that is connected to Toril and only to Toril.
In essence, they shrunk the cosmology and put Toril at the absolute center of it. And this creates issues because not only is it a retcon, it really makes it difficult to explain how anyone can come from elsewhere -- whether that anyone is an interloper deity like Tyr or a bunch of people being kidnapped from another Prime world that TSR/WotC has always been oddly careful NOT to identify as Earth. |
| Returnip |
Posted - 04 Jun 2023 : 13:03:12
To answer OP's question, I think it's reasonable to cherry pick stuff from 4e and 5e that aren't self-contained new things. For example if a 4e or 5e product elaborate on something established in earlier editions I might use that. But if they change it I throw it out. The biggest problem I have with 4e and 5e is that they have changed things too much so there is very little in there that can be reconciled with my 3.5 setting so it's very rare that anything from those editions of the realms is of any use to me. Example: Just the massive time skip kills off pretty much every NPC that isn't an elf or a dwarf and along with them all their plots, agendas etc.
On a side note, I don't find the cosmology changes from 2e to 3.x to be that much of an issue. I have both views coexisting. That way I can have different schools of scientists argue about which is correct. |
| Wooly Rupert |
Posted - 03 Jun 2023 : 16:57:09
quote:
Originally posted by Zeromaru X
quote:
Originally posted by Wooly Rupert
quote:
Originally posted by Wooly Rupertdon't have seen anything like that in 4e.
Canon is lore. If there is a lore inconsistency, that's a canon inconsistency.
This is why I said fans don't really understand what canon is. Canon isn't lore. Canon is a set of references you can use when you are researching about something. If you are reading the Bible (the original use of the word canon was for this), do you read only the books the Christians consider canon? Or do you alse read the apocryphal books of the Catholics?
The same happens with sourcebooks. If you are reading about 3.x Realmslore, do you only accept WotC books? Do you think the novels also apply? Do you add Pathfinder lore into your canon?
The canon is just a rule the allows to recognize which books to read to create an organized sense of lore, but the lore per se it's not the canon (as the lore can be changed - retconned later).
EVERYTHING can be changed -- including your theoretical rule, which has been changed. By your definition, there is no such thing as canon, since it can all be changed.
Canon is lore. If we can't agree on that basic premise, then there's nothing further to discuss. |
| Ayrik |
Posted - 03 Jun 2023 : 16:54:18
quote:
Killing Drizzt Do'Urden is the only good thing to do.
Don't underestimate the abilities of an impersonal greedy corporation.
They might decide to impose a new vision on the "property" they own. Sweep out the old, install the new. Drizzt is an untouchable money maker. Until Drizzt stops making money ... then they'll liquidate has-been old Drizzt to build up their shiny new character.
The Mickey Mouse operation said it best:
"Let the past die. Kill it if you have to." |
| Zeromaru X |
Posted - 03 Jun 2023 : 16:20:42
quote:
Originally posted by Wooly Rupert
quote:
Originally posted by Wooly Rupertdon't have seen anything like that in 4e.
Canon is lore. If there is a lore inconsistency, that's a canon inconsistency.
This is why I said fans don't really understand what canon is. Canon isn't lore. Canon is a set of references you can use when you are researching about something. If you are reading the Bible (the original use of the word canon was for this), do you read only the books the Christians consider canon? Or do you alse read the apocryphal books of the Catholics?
The same happens with sourcebooks. If you are reading about 3.x Realmslore, do you only accept WotC books? Do you think the novels also apply? Do you add Pathfinder lore into your canon?
The canon is just a rule the allows to recognize which books to read to create an organized sense of lore, but the lore per se it's not the canon (as the lore can be changed - retconned later).
quote:
Originally posted by Diffan
[quote]Originally posted by Wooly Rupert
Or other changes like killing off Drizzt Do'Urden
Killing Drizzt Do'Urden is the only good thing to do. |
| Diffan |
Posted - 02 Jun 2023 : 17:03:44
quote:
Originally posted by Wooly Rupert
I myself used to be really big on trying to stick with published canon, but I've since backed off from that. If I ever DM in the Realms, I'm sticking with a slightly modified version of the 1370s era, and I'll go my own way after that -- perhaps backporting in, with relevant changes, anything I like from later eras.
I really think this is the best approach. I have a couple of campaigns set in the Forgotten Realms (at various times) and I tend to just ignore things that don't really fit into the structure of the current adventure. Really, what does it matter what's going on in the Moonsea when my party is invested in the situations they're involved in while exploring Elturel or Greenest? Unless something directly involves my PCs, I tend to just consider that stuff....over there.
quote:
Originally posted by Wooly Rupert
*I'm disagreeing because my attitude is that if a thing isn't explicitly covered in canon, then whatever you do with that thing isn't violating canon. If there's no published material saying "this building holds this kind of business" then saying it's a festhall doesn't violate anything.
I was more or less pointing out bigger changes to the setting that might occur with PC involvement. For example, stopping a smuggling ring operating out of Neverwinter to a group of cultists of Malar is fine, doesn't really contradict anything that your group does. On the other hand, killing Dagult Neverember because he's been a doppleganger since his ousting as the Open Lord of Waterdeep and a PC becoming the Lord Protector of Neverwinter IS a pretty big deal, changes the Canon of the setting, especially if a future product references Dagult (or a movie, for that matter) as the Lord of Neverwinter in a time post your involvement. Or other changes like killing off Drizzt Do'Urden or using a ritual to make Waterdeep a floating city. Stuff like that. |
| sleyvas |
Posted - 02 Jun 2023 : 15:32:54
Well, one thing the 3.5e to 4e change DID de-canonize is that the world was known as "Abeir-Toril" and suddenly its only called "Toril". It was also kind of made out like this "world" of Abeir was a totally unknown entity prior to this to most of the world, and if this is the case... why was there ever any reference to an Abeir to the people of Toril. I mean, that's not a dealbreaker in my book, but as most can see with me.... I always try to take whatever's put out and spin it in some way to try and make both new and old "true"... that's part of the fun of it.
As an aside... one thing I only started thinking about after talking with Seethyr about Anchorome and the land of the insect men... I like the idea that when "Abeir" got initially created, perhaps there were a LOT of Abeil (the somewhat elven like Beefolk)..... and maybe the name of the world came from their language. Over time though, the numbers of these Abeil shrank drastically, and possibly the few entries of abeil on Toril were as a result of world crossovers on a smaller scale prior to the spellplague (world crossovers that perhaps the immigrants themselves didn't truly understand). |
| Cyrano |
Posted - 02 Jun 2023 : 10:55:54
quote:
Originally posted by TKU
I don't know, that seems like a pretty bold claim to make. Certainly I can think of a number of changes to the setting that are really hard to reconcile with what was established in earlier editions. I don't want to turn this into a 'drow thread' but that's certainly the first thing that comes to my head.
Anyways, you seem to be saying in the earlier post that if there's an in-universe explanation for whatever doesn't mean it's not a retcon. Retcons can be well-executed too, but I don't sense that this is what most people are talking about here. 4e's Spellplague and associated events almost comes across as spiteful in the way it went out of its way to target certain parts of the realms. A horrible hack job to justify the rebooted setting they wanted to present in 4e. Whether you want to call it metaplot or retcons is a matter of semantics and perspective-either way it was quite the mess dumped on the setting for the purposes of changing it into something so comprehensively different on so many levels that it might as well have been another setting to begin with. So if we are talking compatibility, there's the long and the short of it-it really isn't. It was designed to be incompatible, it was designed to replace, not supplement. It was a reboot, but the unpleasant kind that's too insecure to stand on its own two feet and compete with its predecessor, and needs to give itself legitimacy by placing itself in the same universe, and then tearing it down in order to supplant it.
5e for its part may have sought legitimacy by making itself superficially reminiscent of pre-spellplague Toril, but it's become abundantly clear that its approach to the lore and history of the realms hews closer in policy to 4e's.
I feel like there's maybe some confusion at work here - confusion between not liking the product and the case for it not 'counting' as part of the canon (or history or lore or whatever you want to call it) of this fictional world.
I know the Spellplague and 4th Ed. Realms are vastly unpopular, and I'm not trying to argue that actually they're good. And as a player or DM you can obviously ignore them or spin them off into their own separate history if you like. But you can do *anything* if you like.
But putting aside whether it's a good product, a good continuation of the Realms' history...the Spellplague emerges from the conditions of the 3.5E Realms. It accounts for its changes within the fictional history of Toril - it doesn't declare by editorial fiat that things have always been this way, or unhappen the Time of Troubles to say AD&D products don't count - again, look to Disney and Star Wars for an example of what stuff being decanonised looks like.
And the Realms has had big changes between Editions or as ongoing storylines before - the Time of Troubles, and the return of the Netherese enclave from Shade (found that one rather tedious tbh). 4E is certainly bigger, and widely accepted as worse but it is following in existing footsteps.
The 5th Edition Realms recognised the 4E stuff as unpopular and so its own developments moved back towards the set up people recognised from 2nd and 3rd Edition. But again, it does this within the fiction. It doesn't declare that the Spellplague never happened, and you should throw those books away. And the later 5E statements about canon aren't telling you to throw your old books away - they're reassuring new people they don't need to buy them to play the game. Which can only be a good thing.
And if people think that Realms products are just commercially driven now and weren't way back when...I don't know what to tell you. It's always been a business. It's always been about trying to identify and sell to an audience and make a profit. I'm really grateful there was some weird economic sweet spot in the 80s and 90s that allowed the Forgotten Realms to get this incredibly detailed development across dozens of books. But that was because it was economically possible, not out of the goodness of people's hearts. |
| Wooly Rupert |
Posted - 02 Jun 2023 : 01:47:19
quote:
Originally posted by Zeromaru X
quote:
Originally posted by Wooly Rupert
Two examples I can think of off the top of my head:
But those are examples of lore inconsistencies, not canon inconsistencies. A canon inconsistency is this source saying that this character did something in 13XX DR, and that other source saying that the something was made by another character, or even failing to recognize said event (for instance, 5e adventures failing to recognize the novel outcomes of their plots, or the adventures changing events of other adventures just for plot's sake).
So far, I don't have seen anything like that in 4e.
Canon is lore. If there is a lore inconsistency, that's a canon inconsistency.
You can call it what you will, but when you tell me this event causes X to happen and then tell me Y happens and Z happens in the same place as X, that's their own information contradicting itself. They said the sea lost 50 feet but it didn't change the mapped coastlines and lost 350 feet in one place and 90 feet in another. That is information that is inconsistent with itself. |
| TKU |
Posted - 01 Jun 2023 : 20:02:24
I don't know, that seems like a pretty bold claim to make. Certainly I can think of a number of changes to the setting that are really hard to reconcile with what was established in earlier editions. I don't want to turn this into a 'drow thread' but that's certainly the first thing that comes to my head.
Anyways, you seem to be saying in the earlier post that if there's an in-universe explanation for whatever doesn't mean it's not a retcon. Retcons can be well-executed too, but I don't sense that this is what most people are talking about here. 4e's Spellplague and associated events almost comes across as spiteful in the way it went out of its way to target certain parts of the realms. A horrible hack job to justify the rebooted setting they wanted to present in 4e. Whether you want to call it metaplot or retcons is a matter of semantics and perspective-either way it was quite the mess dumped on the setting for the purposes of changing it into something so comprehensively different on so many levels that it might as well have been another setting to begin with. So if we are talking compatibility, there's the long and the short of it-it really isn't. It was designed to be incompatible, it was designed to replace, not supplement. It was a reboot, but the unpleasant kind that's too insecure to stand on its own two feet and compete with its predecessor, and needs to give itself legitimacy by placing itself in the same universe, and then tearing it down in order to supplant it.
5e for its part may have sought legitimacy by making itself superficially reminiscent of pre-spellplague Toril, but it's become abundantly clear that its approach to the lore and history of the realms hews closer in policy to 4e's. |
| Cyrano |
Posted - 01 Jun 2023 : 15:52:58
quote:
Originally posted by Wooly Rupert
quote:
Originally posted by Zeromaru X
quote:
Originally posted by Wooly Rupert
4E did not even attempt to maintain canon with itself
I would like to see an example for this, because I own all 4e products (not only-Realms related, but all), and I haven't seen any discrepancies on lore. Unless you are blaming 4e for things that 3.x or 5e did. Happens a lot in this fandom...
Two examples I can think of off the top of my head:
The Sea of Fallen Stars lost 50 feet of sea level. This exposed the upper levels of Myth Nantar to open air... Myth Nantar previously had 300 feet of open water over it, so a change of 50 feet should not have exposed it to air. Similarly, the Sharksbane Wall was 80 feet below the surface. The change in water level exposed the top 10 feet of the Wall. So 50 feet equals 90 feet and also equals 350 feet, simultaneously.
And this happened without a single coastline changing on the maps.
Also, blocking off a large portion of the Sea of Fallen Stars would do more than just impact trade -- it would impact currents and migration, resulting in changes to food supply and even weather, but none of these things were mentioned.
The other great example is Halruaa, which we were originally told had exploded with so much force that the blast somehow went up over a mountain range, and then back down, causing the peninsula where Chult was to shatter and making the place an island. And yet this explosion that caused so much damage somehow left buildings standing at ground zero. Somehow, Halruaa both did and didn't blow up, at the same time.
I'm not sure either of these represent a problem with canon - a retcon, or establishing a new canon that contradicts the old. The sea question is a mistake isn't it? Getting the numbers wrong in a fictional product. It's not saying 'this was never sunk under 350 feet of ocean' it's saying 'the writers made a mistake' - perhaps one that can be accounted for within the fiction as part of an existing event that raised mountains and shattered who countries?
And isn't the thing that happened to Halruaa meant to be both a huge magical explosion and a translocation to another planet or plane? That seems like it could consistently cause both enormous devastation and leave some buildings standing.
Disney has showed us what mass decanonisation looks like: when they started making Star Wars films again, they looked at the tangled web of comics, novels and cartoon series and said "None of this happened. We're having a clean slate to make movies and tell stories without fitting into twenty years of post Return of the Jedi tie in novels"
The 5E situation with the Forgotten Realms looks much more like what happened when the BBC started making Doctor Who again. All the history of it had still happened, but what mattered was each episode on TV there and then on Saturday night. You weren't going to have a problem understanding it if you hadn't seen a story from 1973, or read a tie in novel from the 90s. It was facing the future, not the past.
As far as I know, nothing from WotC/Hasbro made that statement about canon has contradicted anything from the setting's past (beyond the sort of things you might expect from a story told by many hands across multiple decades.
It has, in fact, included many references to the deep past of the setting - Netherese relics, Undermountain and more. It just doesn't want to direct players (or make players feel directed) to out of print books from the 80s to understand what's happening and feel included.
I truly don't think there's any inconsistency in the 'story' of the Forgotten Realms that isn't caused by human error or within the fiction magical weirdness. |
| Cyrano |
Posted - 01 Jun 2023 : 15:37:03
quote:
Originally posted by DoveArrow
What I will concede is that, once you move past 3.5, it is infinitely harder to ensure that what you're creating is consistent with the current lore. I'll just give the example of the Forest of Mir. It's the same forest throughout every sourcebook up until 4E. Then suddenly, it's the Spires of Mir. So now you're like, "Okay... I'm not sure what I think about that, but I think I'm getting used to it," and then the Second Sundering happens. Now what? Is it a forest again? Are there still spires there? No way of knowing. And as a result, it's quite possible that you could put something together and a sourcebook that comes out next year will contradict you.
This doesn't seem like an inconsistency in canon or a retcon. The change of a geographical feature is explained by and is a feature the sort of world shaking events 4e wanted to base itself on. And not covering that specific part of the world in 5e is just...not covering it. WotC not covering an area of interest in enough detail isn't a canon problem.
Your worry that something you put together could be contradicted by an official product is something that could have happened at any point in the TSR days if you took your campaign into a region sketched out in the campaign setting which then got a more detailed treatment in one of the splatbooks. |
| Zeromaru X |
Posted - 01 Jun 2023 : 13:00:36
quote:
Originally posted by Wooly Rupert
Two examples I can think of off the top of my head:
But those are examples of lore inconsistencies, not canon inconsistencies. A canon inconsistency is this source saying that this character did something in 13XX DR, and that other source saying that the something was made by another character, or even failing to recognize said event (for instance, 5e adventures failing to recognize the novel outcomes of their plots, or the adventures changing events of other adventures just for plot's sake).
So far, I don't have seen anything like that in 4e.
quote:
Originally posted by Ayrik
To me, the "canon" is more like guidelines.
This is the literal meaning of canon: just a set of references to be taken as guidelines while studying something. Only fans want to believe that canon means "sacred gospel of unchanging truths".
Canon is only useful for the guys writing stuff on the wiki. For the rest of us, it's just a set of ideas you can consider for your homebrew campaign. |
| sleyvas |
Posted - 01 Jun 2023 : 03:12:23
quote:
Originally posted by Wooly Rupert
snippage
The other great example is Halruaa, which we were originally told had exploded with so much force that the blast somehow went up over a mountain range, and then back down, causing the peninsula where Chult was to shatter and making the place an island. And yet this explosion that caused so much damage somehow left buildings standing at ground zero. Somehow, Halruaa both did and didn't blow up, at the same time.
That's because "the sages that know" don't really understand what happened. When the "spellplague" happened you see... it caused an "echo" of the first sundering created by "the Hidden One"... who is also "echoed" into the "other" "Hidden One". Yes, both Ao AND Mystra use this appellation. It seems to have occurred when a large projectile hurled itself towards Toril and smashed into Faerun and created "Lake Halruaa" and subsequently the raising of a ring of mountains around the lands that would become known as Halruaa.
Oddly, some note the old myths of Selune "hurling" a bit of herself at Shar and creating Mystryl in relation to this impact in Halruaa. Others scoff at such notions, for surely they are just the blathering of fools.
This momentary "echo" of the first sundering was created when Mystra "died" and the divine domain of Dweomerheart was ripped from its linkages to Toril and forcibly transferred to become linked to Abeir. This, some believe, was a contingency effect created by the original Mystryl as a means of escaping enemies should she ever find herself attacked. Others believe that it was an accidental triggering of the effects Ao had long ago put in place to expel rivals to Abeir. Of course there are even more far fetched theories as well. This "echo" thereby kicked off the momentary transfers of lands which became semi-permanent. Of course "the sages that know" believed that Dweomerheart had exploded as well, but some believe that the people of Halruaa were saved through the actions of Savras. They say that he foresaw this threat and he, along with his sometime competitor Leira, managed to save the people of Nimbral and Halruaa through their actions, actions that possibly didn't involve sending those lands into Abeir... in fact, some believe that Nimbral was sent into the Feywild... which some believe triggered some actions with another hidden island that some know as Evermeet. Some few believe that the entirety of Halruaa may have been transferred or copied into Dweomerheart, and an even fewer number believe that many of those who lived there had their souls absorbed into a weakened Mystra in order to stabilize her.
Ever at your service,
The Humble Sage
Phallissy Meandering of Nimbral
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| The DMs Revenge |
Posted - 01 Jun 2023 : 01:04:44
quote:
Originally posted by mastermustard
It's not unreasonable to consider the fifth edition, or possibly anything post 4E its own separate universe, right?
I've personally been making plans to treat the post-Spellplague Realms as an alternate Material Plane, shifted far enough into the future so that my 1360's/1370's PCs can travel there and back again - best of both options, IMO. |
| Ayrik |
Posted - 31 May 2023 : 23:24:24
"Well, y'see, the rules and the Code are more like ... guidelines. Savvy?"
To me, the "canon" is more like guidelines.
I don't worry if my gaming violates any of Wizbro's "canon" expectations.
I most certainly don't care if it violates any "canon" in the future. "Canon" which hasn't even been published yet. |
| Wooly Rupert |
Posted - 31 May 2023 : 23:14:11
While I don't agree with the thought that as soon as you do something in the Realms, it's no longer canon*, I otherwise agree with Diffan.
I myself used to be really big on trying to stick with published canon, but I've since backed off from that. If I ever DM in the Realms, I'm sticking with a slightly modified version of the 1370s era, and I'll go my own way after that -- perhaps backporting in, with relevant changes, anything I like from later eras.
*I'm disagreeing because my attitude is that if a thing isn't explicitly covered in canon, then whatever you do with that thing isn't violating canon. If there's no published material saying "this building holds this kind of business" then saying it's a festhall doesn't violate anything. |
| Diffan |
Posted - 31 May 2023 : 22:50:17
quote:
Originally posted by mastermustard
I guess I'm just bitter and want some consensus about where the Realms history should cut off.
It should cut off the moment in Realms-time/space that no longer interests you or your group.
Ask yourself, why are you adhering to Canon (regardless of time/edition) if other than to enmesh your group in a shared world with events that occur with or without your groups involvement? The thing with Canon - in my experience anyways - is that it was never intended to be followed with 100% accuracy by a group/player. The moment you make a character, interject your decisions and ideas and actions and involvement within the Realms...it stops being Canon. Its like a ripple in time that is irrevocably changed other than starting a new campaign in a new time-stream.
So if your involvement in the Realms instantly alters Canon, if your actions change an event or kill off an NPC or make a change to the landscape (and trust me, LOTS of spells do this) then it's possible that those actions will not be accepted in any "standard" Canon in future products, which I'd assume you'd happily ignore (and rightfully so!). So why not the reverse be true? Don't want Eilistraee to die, or an NPC to rise to power or a city to fall even if thats what's written in a book or a supplement....don't. let. it.
It's YOUR Realms for a reason. YOUR Canon. YOUR stories, adventures, trials and tribulations. Sticking with a storyline that bores you, or angers you, or disinterests you out of some longing for continuity that no one else is going to see anyways but the people that matter (your gaming group) doesn't make a whole lot of sense.
Since 4th Edition (and I say this AS a big fan of 4th Edition rules and Forgotten Realms changes) occurred, I have opened my eyes to what Canon truly offers, a buffet of ideas and plots and tales that I can pick and choose to enhance my campaigns and stories. I actually PREFER to change things as to better shape how I want the world to look and feel. Not every change "feels" good, and that's actually a necessity in a world attempting to feel real, things in real-life can and often do suck. So sometimes I'll add in things that - on a world scale - hinder or interfere with aspects of my campaign. A god dying (or being reborn), a new weapon discovered (lasers, albeit briefly), portals to distant worlds (Hello Ravnica: City of Guilds) that certainly don't Jive with established Realmslore. That's the point, a living-breathing world has warts and sometimes oozes puss, and maybe it'll be my group's actions that fix it.
So do a group discussion of where you enjoy playing in the Realms. Figure out a time in which you'd like to start and then advance to, and then make the changes as you go. Take timeline events that you DO enjoy (I'm sure there's some out there) and add them in. Take out things you don't OR things that don't make sense. Use clues of campaign-time supplements to advance the world (I've found the Rumors section in the FRCS[/i] to be really valuable here!) and make those decisions as needed. OR roll for things and throw in some bad aspects too, because sometimes BBEGs actually do win, otherwise there'd be no point.
Hope this ramble helped provide some clarity or at least inspiration. Happy gaming!! |
| DoveArrow |
Posted - 31 May 2023 : 17:30:46
ququote:
Originally posted by mastermustard
It's not unreasonable to consider the fifth edition, or possibly anything post 4E its own separate universe, right?
I don't think it's unreasonable. I think it's just as reasonable to consider them all part of one universe too.
What I will concede is that, once you move past 3.5, it is infinitely harder to ensure that what you're creating is consistent with the current lore. I'll just give the example of the Forest of Mir. It's the same forest throughout every sourcebook up until 4E. Then suddenly, it's the Spires of Mir. So now you're like, "Okay... I'm not sure what I think about that, but I think I'm getting used to it," and then the Second Sundering happens. Now what? Is it a forest again? Are there still spires there? No way of knowing. And as a result, it's quite possible that you could put something together and a sourcebook that comes out next year will contradict you.
quote:
Originally posted by mastermustard
Created for the sake of profit by Lord Ao's bosses at WOTC and Hasbro.
Don't kid yourself. Ao's bosses have always been interested in profit. That was true when his boss was Gary Gygax and Don Kaye, it was true when it was Lorraine Williams, it was true when it was Peter Adkison, it is true now under Chris Cocks and Cynthia Williams. Ao's bosses have always been interested in profit. |
| Wooly Rupert |
Posted - 30 May 2023 : 21:54:17
quote:
Originally posted by Zeromaru X
quote:
Originally posted by Wooly Rupert
4E did not even attempt to maintain canon with itself
I would like to see an example for this, because I own all 4e products (not only-Realms related, but all), and I haven't seen any discrepancies on lore. Unless you are blaming 4e for things that 3.x or 5e did. Happens a lot in this fandom...
Two examples I can think of off the top of my head:
The Sea of Fallen Stars lost 50 feet of sea level. This exposed the upper levels of Myth Nantar to open air... Myth Nantar previously had 300 feet of open water over it, so a change of 50 feet should not have exposed it to air. Similarly, the Sharksbane Wall was 80 feet below the surface. The change in water level exposed the top 10 feet of the Wall. So 50 feet equals 90 feet and also equals 350 feet, simultaneously.
And this happened without a single coastline changing on the maps.
Also, blocking off a large portion of the Sea of Fallen Stars would do more than just impact trade -- it would impact currents and migration, resulting in changes to food supply and even weather, but none of these things were mentioned.
The other great example is Halruaa, which we were originally told had exploded with so much force that the blast somehow went up over a mountain range, and then back down, causing the peninsula where Chult was to shatter and making the place an island. And yet this explosion that caused so much damage somehow left buildings standing at ground zero. Somehow, Halruaa both did and didn't blow up, at the same time. |
| Zeromaru X |
Posted - 30 May 2023 : 20:22:59
quote:
Originally posted by Wooly Rupert
4E did not even attempt to maintain canon with itself
I would like to see an example for this, because I own all 4e products (not only-Realms related, but all), and I haven't seen any discrepancies on lore. Unless you are blaming 4e for things that 3.x or 5e did. Happens a lot in this fandom...
(Inb4, is something some 3.x novels did with the drow, that people insist was done for 4e, ignoring it's actually clear those novels were made by other team of writers that may or may not have any influence in what was later writen for 4e canon...) |
| George Krashos |
Posted - 30 May 2023 : 16:45:57
No shared world is going to have total consistency. Especially one spanning 30+ years of published products written by a hundred hands. The question of why the fans should attempt to make everything consistent is a good one. If WotC don't care, why should I? But then again, it depends on what you are doing and why. For your own campaign, the Realms is always what you want it to be. As soon as you insert the adventures of the Company of the Dancing Dryad into the Realms, you immediately deviate from the canon Realms. After that, it doesn't really matter as long as you and your players are enjoying the game.
If you are writing for the Realms in a general sense, say at the DMs Guild, then you elect to follow canon or not, as circumstances dictate. A recent product at the Guild, which has seemingly done very well, is basically set in a post-apocalypse Realms. Certainly not canon, and yet the fanbase clearly like the idea and content. Additionally, if you are writing an adventure in say, the environs of Ormath in the Shining Plains in the 1490s DR, there is no way you can offend canon as there is no canon Realmslore for that location in the 5E Realms, and indeed little in all the published Realms.
So basically, yes, canon can be important. And it can be fun to make a coherent whole out of the inconsistencies other writers have left behind. But for 95% of all Realms fan, I don't think it's all that important because it doesn't really matter for their game. They are going to do what they are going to do, and it's as simple as that. A coherent, detailed entire Realms is a thing of the past. WotC just want to write stuff and ask you to buy it. They are paid to do it, it'a a job and they will write and do whatever generates sales. And if that means introducing Vecna and Acerarak to the Realms, they'll do it in a heartbeat. Heck, they are only doing what a million fans before them have done. I've seen decades of fans talking about their idea of introducing Vecna, an Abyssal invasion, a spelljammer assault by the scro, Raistlin, Iuz, etc. etc. etc. into the Realms. It's always been a thing. It's just now being done "officially". Like it, buy it, ignore it. Your call. WotC likely don't care as long as people keep buying the books and their ability to write them isn't unduly fettered by 30+ years of published products.
And you really can't blame them. Writing good quality, dealing-with-the-inconsistencies, giving due to all that has gone before Realmslore is *bleeping* hard. I've been trying to do it for 25 or so years, with varying degrees of success, because I love it. If it was my job, constrained by all that entails, I'm not sure I'd have the same commitment.
-- George Krashos |
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