Perhaps in a similar vein as the "what I'd change about Amia" thread, what are some aspects or facets of the Forgotten Realms setting you would change? Is there something you can do as a player or PC on Amia to make it more like that vision? Realistically I'm talking less about mechanical stuff, but more about the actual lore and flavor of the setting itself. Anyway, here are a few of mine.



1. Put the Gods back into their Machines

A very unique(and interesting) thing about the Forgotten Realms setting is that its gods are well known. Very well known, as compared to many other fantasy settings. Even before the Godswar which happened only a couple of decades ago in our setting, they were known to come down from their ivory towers and pal around with humans every once in a while. This is fine by me. Additionally, there are hundreds of gods in the setting. Every race has its own pantheon, or at the very least, it's own personal god mentioned somewhere in a Dragon magazine. This is also fine with me. What I would change, if given a time machine and magic pencil, would be to shift the inherent focus on the gods in the setting to their intermediaries. The gods can and are involved in almost everything in the setting. Everything. If something even remotely interesting takes place anywhere, a god is bound to have their finger in it. The problem with that is, as gods, they are almost always beyond the ken of mortals. Maybe you thwart a gods plans for the moment, but if they really, really wanted to, there's nothing to stop even the lowest of the Demi-deities from manifesting in the flesh and smiting most PCs and maybe even most NPCs in the face.

What I would enjoy more is to see that same focus given instead to things like Angels, Demons, outsiders, cursed warlords, and other things. Something that PCs could grapple with a bit easier. In my mind, indeed, the gods are very involved in the Realms, but their true efforts are so hugely-scoped and so unknowable that what PCs actually ever come in contact with is just the leftovers(or distractions) that spill onto their plane of existence. Outsiders would be looked at a lot more readily as means to divine energies, healing, and knowledge. Yes, gods come down and walk the streets every so often--but at their leisure. Because they want to. It's not a two way street. If you want to know what to do to please the goddess of the crops for a bountiful harvest, you call up one of her servitors, rather than petition her directly.

Additionally, I'd make the nature of godhood a lot less... uniform? In FR, every god is sort of the same sort of being once they attain their status, as I understand it. I imagine this is largely so the rules of Ao apply evenly to all of them. Which is cool, but it sort of makes it seem like there is no difference between how the gods got to their positions. If I had a magic quill yet again, godhood would be looked at more as a title. Ao's rules still apply evenly and they still have to be worshiped to survive, but it is not as if every god is the same race with the same sort of quirks. Perhaps indeed the Seldarine are leShay elves who survived so long that they qualified for the rank of godhood. The Mordinsamman might have been an actual party of dwarves who, upon killing one of the first primordials taking his essence for themselves, gained immense powers. Using these powers to better their kin, they were eventually worshiped, and thus qualified for godhood in the eyes of Ao. There would be more mystery and ambiguity in what exactly a god is, even if a lot is known about them. Somewhat similar to the previous point, the gods would stop being the end-all-be-all entities in the setting. With focus and power shifted to their intermediaries or powerful mortals, it gets a bit more interesting. A god becomes something less aspired to, and more like a force of nature... or something that just happened. It just is, like the ocean, or the mountains, or any natural facet of the world. And like any natural thing, there is always something within that world that can challenge it, be it mortal or immortal or never living at all. I look at the ToT with Midnight, Kelemvor, Cyric, the Dead Three, all ascending to godhood at the end of it, and I feel as if its "Oh, look, these mortals all got really powerful and interesting. Time to make them gods, so they're officially important and paint them with the same, flavorless brush as all the others." Them continuing on as perhaps gods, perhaps mortals, maybe a few in between, would have been more interesting in my book and made them more accessible characters in the setting.

Oh, and I'd stop using Mystryl/Mystra as the sole plot device for changing the mechanics of the setting. Seriously. Mary Sue Thunderbitch needs a rest. Which brings me to me my next point.



2. Mystranism Gets its Shit Together... Which means Falling Apart, Somewhat

Why is one of the largest, oldest religions one of the most bland? Why were there no hold-outs upon Midnight's ascension? You have races whose individuals are centuries if not millennia old who worshiped Mystra. Thousands if not millions of petitioners who had known her for so long. A teenager comes along, whose life span is not even a blip on the radar to some of these races, even some long-lived human mages, and she shifts the heart of the religion from LN to NG. And the world responds with a resounding, deafening... "Okay.". I've often made the statement that if a PC walks into a bar and proclaims "I am a Mystran," the mental image the occupants construct is basically the same no matter wherever you are. There are no well-known sects. No cults. No heresy or different interpretations that glide under the radar for the sake of keeping the religion together. It's just... bland. Everyone's got the same picture. On the whole, there's no syncretism, or any particularly evident divides in a religion that has existed almost forever and would have assuredly had to re-invent itself many times or adopt newer beliefs or adapt to a changing landscape.

Let alone the fact that Mystra being the defacto god of Magic in the realms is as equally problematic as Kelemvor being lord over the plane that all dead must travel to. (I see that situation as another that older, more established races/gods should have had issue with, realistically). But additionally, she is basically propped up as the most powerful god in the setting by default. I recall there being one novel that even flat out said she was, but did not exercise her full power because... Ao would get mad or something. Anyway, you've got this uber-powerful goddess who has seven demi-god(in the classical sense of the word) daughters who don't really feel that important in the grand scheme of things. Or rather, they only seem as important as any other non-deity NPC could aspire to in the setting. Their existence would be a perfect place to have some of that shifted importance from gods to god-likes I talked about earlier. But no, for the most part they're just... dudettes. A few are powerful and prominent dudettes, but nothing on the plane of being petitioned in proxy for their mother, being particularly more mystic or unknowable than any other Chosen, or so on.

Despite the best efforts of the setting, I find Mystra and Mystranism quite interesting. At least when I look at all the blank space in between the clearly printed lines. That sort of intrigue, that kind of it-might-not-be-so-simple is something I crave as a player. And something I try to bring about in my own PC's RP, with varying success. But it's difficult because Mystra as a whole is so big and so explicitly detailed, but all the same so uninteresting. Coming along and speaking contrary to that narrative is an uphill battle most of the time.

In my perfect realms, Mystra is all that she is now, but only because Mystra and Mystranism is as conflicted and varied as some sort of RL religion. She's the Katamari Damacy of magical gods, absorbing and subverting and subjugating and amalgamating deities and concepts into one sort of religion. To this end, there are prominent sects who vary differently. You have some people who only worship her because missionaries came and told the people that their god of magic was one of her servants(which, being believed by the people eventually because truth, because that's how belief and gods work). You got some Mystrans who don't actually worship her, understanding her more as a concept, and instead worship on the the Sisters. You got some Mystrans who are assholes and picket the funerals of dead mages, giving other Mystrans a bad name, who they have to apologize about profusely so people know they're not "one of those" Mystrans. The older races of Toril still insist upon calling her Mystryl and worship her as such successfully(leading some to believe Midnight/Mystra is either a pretender to the position or a cut-out aspect that Mystryl herself used to attract younger races). More locally, I'd see the Sword Coast becoming particularly pissed with Mystrans over the stuff the Arcanum pulled not but a year ago, leading to some very tense situations with any Mystrans traveling abroad. The Seven Sisters would be a lot more fuzzy, perhaps being mortal in the flesh, perhaps not. Maybe they only inhabit a mortal woman as a sort of avatar sort of deal and upon being slain, float around until they find another. Additionally, you've got more women who claim to be one of the daughters or possessed by one of them who are not, and maybe even a man claiming to be the "lost son," pointing to, perhaps fleetingly, that Mystra's symbol has 8 points, yet she only has 7 descendants(the 8th being missing or blacked out from holy record). You get the picture. It would be big and horrendous and mystical and everything that a huge, mega-magic-religion should be in my book. An interesting foil to how Magic itself is quite often treated as a science in the Realms, perhaps even leading to a secular versus religious divide in the religion, some seeing Mystra as only the winder of the giant clock that is Magic, others seeing Magic as a divinely inspired gift that is to be treated as such.



3. Keep this Train A'rollin

The concepts of synchronicity and the eternal return are two of the greatest things I love to see in any work of fiction. The idea that the actors change, but the story(and even roles) stay the same is just gripping and applicable throughout recorded history. There are factions. They come into conflict. Some win, some lose. They rise. They fall. It all begins again. Nothing lasts forever, not even nothingness.

This is particularly evident in the setting having dozens upon dozens of ancient kingdoms, plane-spanning empires, and species that have all risen and have all fallen. And so, what is present now is traceable back through eons and eons of cultures and story. I love that about Forgotten Realms, just how I love it in games like Drakengard, Darksouls, and Legend of Zelda. I just wish it were more prominent in FR. Perhaps it's downplayed to keep the setting accessible to new initiates, but it's something that I'd love to see featured more often. It's already there in a few places. The idea that the concept of the Eight Spell Schools only exists as widely as it does because that's the convention that the Nether Scrolls, the basis for most modern magic, was written in--that's hella tight. I love that shit. I want more of it. And in wanting more of it, I guess I want the counter-narratives to be more prominent as well. Yes, it's the convention that many arcanists use, but you can still come across other equally old, equally proficient methods in the world if you look hard enough. And it should be jarring to many PCs, like us learning learning you can count in non-base 10 number systems, or that some sort of forgein language only uses verbs and smells, yet has beautiful poetry by those who claim to read it.

But back to the main point of a never-ending story, I feel like our server accomplishes much of what I speak of even without the setting doing it. We've been around for a decade. We have those stories made by real players. The Benwick Knights, followed by the Defenders, followed by the Triadics, or the Tower of Mystra, followed by the Monolith, followed by the Seven Stars, it's there for us. We, as a server, have made that history real and participated in it first hand. Even still, I would love to see it featured more. We are fortunate enough to have PCs and players who have stuck around for much of that time and can tell you exactly who and what happened. My own PC often recounts stories of the first Warlords to the current War Knights, despite never being one himself. He was just there and hung around enough to know. There's a lineage that goes back for years through our own players. Where it was missing until recently was in the actual module itself. We've taken steps to fix this though, through item descriptions and PC dialogues. But more of the same can only help. We have the unique position of a new player being able to log on and sit down and hear a narrative of what really happened from other players, which is something that you can't get from many other places.

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You just made my toast pop. Hard.

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Aernoud Van Brabant: Heir of the House. Proprietor of the Beer Wagon.
"Go to the Mayfields, have a pint, and wait for this to blow over."
Aurelius: Sunmaster of Amaunator. Contemplative. Aspirant to Transcendance.
"Sol Invictus"

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~ Currently on hiatus ~

... and on the third day the ale ran out and the dwarves rebelled. The Realms were never the same, barrels of exquisite ale became the common currency, everyone was mandated to grow a beard... EVERYONE, and the longsword ceased to exist.

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fairdady..

This is pretty much the only reason I log on with Ulrik anymore.

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Playing:
Marcus Valis

I forgot about this one until I spoke with someone in game a while ago.

Another change I would make to our setting would be to basically combine and split the Far Realm between Limbo and the Abyss. In honesty, the Far Realm always felt to be like D&D trying to copy the Lovecraftian universe over without any effort. It's main thing is it's a big, nonsensical, alien place full of eldritch horrors and tentacled beings who want to have their way with Kara-turan school girls. But between the Demon Lords, Elder Evils, and Slaad Lords, there really isn't anything like an alien influence or cult that couldn't be explained without the Far Realm. Hell, I'm pretty sure the giant golden amoeba Slaad Lord Ssendam was inspired from something like Yog Sothoth. From my experience in P&P and NWN, the Far Realm only seems to get wheeled out when you want to make sure absolutely no PC will have any idea what they're dealing with(unless they're one of the Alienist prcs). And that's sort of a cop-out for making new and interesting challenges most of the time.

Mindflayers and Aboleths can just come from another actual planet in the Prime plane. As in depth as things like Spelljamer go into describing their outposts in the Torillian system, there's really no reason to say that Aberrations have to come from a whole different plane, rather than simply a few planets out there already. There's plenty of crazy, chaos, and non-humanoid morality to go around between the infinite Abyss and Limbo. But at least one of those plane's inhabitants could do with a face-lift.



"Let's make a chaotic race that's a foil to the Modrons and Formians!"
"Yeah!"
"And you what would be super chaotic? If they all looked the same, except for like, 4 or 5 important ones!"
"Ye-wait, what?"
"And to really make them cur-razy random, they'll all be literally fucking color-coded for your convenience!"
"Jim, pls, no."
"And they follow a very strict hierarchy imposed on them by their chaotic rulers, because chaos loves maintaining order!"
"Jim, stop."

Alright, so maybe I have a love-hate relationship with slaads. As with most things I like in the Forgotten Realms setting, I guess. Now, there are multiple explanations I've come across for why Slaadi have such a system. One says the Spawning Stone was originally put there by Primus, in an effort to organize the Chaos of Limbo, which then only resulted in the Slaad taking a number of set forms. Another is that the stone was always there, but the first Slaad Lords out of it tampered with it to make sure no slaads born after them would be as strong... which resulted in all of the slaads looking the same and being the same for the most part. Neither sits well with me.

Though, in an effort to keep the setting somewhat true to its roots, I wouldn't just say that Slaadi can be any shape, any form, at any time--as hella cool as that would be. What I would do however is make them a lot more... cartoonish. They would literally behave like cartoons, in the physical sense. The can shrink down involuntarily when they become scared. They can inflate themselves and try to look more muscular--and actually become stronger based off it. They might run off a cliff at full speed, not affected by gravity, until at last they look down, gulp, and hold up a sign that says "oops" to an unseen audience. They'd still have colors that correspond to their powers, but it would be a much more murky thing. No slaad would be the exact same color. No reds, just kind of, reddish blue ones, who are less blue than the bluish-green ones, and so on. They would be chameleonic, their color and power based upon their emotions and self-perception, and the perception of their species as a whole. If one of them looked a bit bigger greener, then over time or over night, he could become bigger and greener based on his own self-image and the perception of his fellows. I guess I want them to be a bit more like Orks from WH40k, in a way. This would make them more in theme with their plane, where the infinite Chaos of Limbo can actively be shaped by the will and perception of those who travel it. Chaosstuff is, in my mind, a Schrodinger's Mess of all elements and energies, at least until it is perceived to be otherwise.

The most powerful of the slaad species would function like Q from Star Trek: TNG. Skimming through the planes, amassing a following with their personality, hosting game shows and contests, and stirring things up purely for their own entertainment. While not incapable of morals, their main concern would be causing things to move, to stir the pot, and back the underdogs. This would lead to them being admired and even loved by those looking to topple an oppressive(or benevolent) government, and equally abhorred by those seeking to maintain some sort of structure, be it a good or evil one. Finally, something to draw some tension between say Lawful and Chaotic characters, the Law vs Chaos tension being largely missing from D&D and NWN. The same creature looked on by some as an awesome agent of change could be seen as a dangerous, random upstart by another, whether both be good or evil.

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And voiced by the spirit of Robin Williams for good measure.

You mean like Halen Van!?

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House Auvrea'Kan Crafts and Services is now open and prepared to discuss orders.

Though, Halen never made the stupid star claim thing, that was my own hyperbole. But in modern times his memory could be good for stirring up heresy and schism in the bowl of plain, lukewarm oatmeal that is Mystranism.

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Have my babies.

That's not a request. You're having my babies.

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Aernoud Van Brabant: Heir of the House. Proprietor of the Beer Wagon.
"Go to the Mayfields, have a pint, and wait for this to blow over."
Aurelius: Sunmaster of Amaunator. Contemplative. Aspirant to Transcendance.
"Sol Invictus"

Well, that will be a bit difficult, on account of my not having one of them new-fangled uteruses and all.

And I guess until someone else wants to join in, "Immolation rails against the FR Campaign Setting" shall continue...

It's a Jalil's World



I like that there are a few matriarchies in our fantasy world. I don't understand why the Drow one has to basically tease constant BDSM and dominatrices because it's evil. It's fine for an NPC race, but in my experience on Amia and other servers, it's usually a pretty toxic thing. Oh, you looked at a lady wrong? Prepare to be beaten mercilessly forever and treated like garbage. Or locked in a sex dungeon. Whichever. Now, look, I read a good number of R.A. Salvatore's books. I get that's what drow-ness basically is in FR by most standards. But, I think even for all it's intrigue, it basically leads to the same thing we've seen play out on our server for years now. Had I my my choice it would be a bit more nuanced.

I would make the Drow society more like a gender-reversed 1920's-1950's stereotype. It's not that males are literally treated like objects and beaten at the drop of the hat. They simply get the raw end of all the deals. They get passed up for jobs. They aren't expected to do anything but what is asked of them by their female counterparts and their ultimate goal in life is to find a big, strong matron to provide for them and their offspring. Think about it. Drow females are usually larger and physically stronger. They get a better education. All the expectations of advancing the society fall to them and they get a leg up in the world. Sure, there might be a few Drow males who are cool, and actually hold a position because they're treated as "one of the gals," but they would be a rarity and probably be subjected to a lot of crappy stuff simply because they stepped out of the norm for their expected roles. Sort of like how Eilistraeen matters are treated(though even those inevitably lead to drama it seems). Females are generally in charge, because they're the ones gifted with the divine power most of the time. It's not fetishized thing, it's a systematic thing.

For all of it's weird anime-ness and non FR-ness, Drowtales is what I think of when I talk about this. I haven't read that much of it, but it seems like a much more subtle thing there. The leaders are female. The important people are female. They're usually bigger. And males are generally underfoot not because the threat of whipping, beating, or pegging is constantly being held over their heads, but because that's the way the society is set up its norms. But much of what's wrong with the Drow is wrong with evil societies and evil itself in FR, if you ask me.

"That which is done out of love always takes place beyond good and evil."



Oh no, something bad about FR's alignment system. This is new. /sarcasm. No, but really, what I mean when I usually complain about evil in FR is that it's most often cartoonish and irredeemable. The narrative that's pushed on you is that there's a balance to all the alignments. But there's simply an inequality in how it gets treated. For instance, you hear of a dozen cases where a Good character "falls" to Evil. But I've never heard of an Evil character "falling" into Good. Likewise, I can think of a story or two where people become "corrupted" and devolve into Chaos, but none where someone is equally pulled towards Law. Good and Law are both things in the FR universe that give the impression that they have to be worked at to be attained. And therefore, it's not really a balance between alignments so much as a constant struggle of two axes to prevent themselves form unraveling into the others. To that end, it's hard to empathize with Evil in FR. It's hard to find the logic of it. You end of with the predicament we have of "why would anyone stand an evil neighbor given the choice" when it will constantly prove to be detrimental as compared to good or even neutral neighbor.

It's a whole big mess that I'm never gonna solve in a post, but I say all this to say I would change the basis Evil in FR less from fuck-shit-uppery to something like Nietzschean ethical egoism. Selfishness, though not necessarily one that intentionally wants to screw others over. I'm great. And because I'm great, I will do great things. I will build an empire that is awesome, not because people are deserving of it, but because I am deserving to run it. I will provide for my family, not because it's the "right" thing to do, but because I want to do it, and I want my descendants to be better off than their peers that I might have a greater legacy in death. I will give not because others need, but because what I have to give is worth giving above what others may give. I will do what I want, whatever I want, because my want, my love, my ethos are the only things by which I can surely measure what is good or bad. Whatever prevents me from pursuing my own goals and personal growth is to be removed and indeed is the true evil. Evil can love. Evil can provide for others. Evil can inspire others. Evil can be good if you set the perspective correctly. And it's that bit of perspective that, for me, would make playing an Evil character interesting(though by most FR standards I think that just qualifies as a selfish CN character... which I already play... >_>)

After all, Good in most editions of FR is basically spelled out as altruism. Concern for the well-being of others(though not necessarily ALL... just others). Certainly something like egoism better foils that than... whatever Evil is supposed to be in a majority of D&D settings. Evil's not an intention to screw others over, it's the innate indifference to screwing others over so much so that screwing others over can look like the intention to an outside party. The Evil ogre isn't knocking over your house because he's Evil and knocking over a house is just something that Evil does. The ogre has a want to eat your children, or remove your house from where he is walking, or simply to kill something. And that want overrides any amount of empathy or concern he has for you. That's at least my take on it. My thoughts on how Evil as a concept could be better enjoyed and explored in FR are further summed up by two well-known quotes. "People aren't against you; they're for themselves." "The opposite of love is not hate, it's indifference."

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I don't understand why Amia uses Forgotten Realms lore in the first place, especially considering that the vast majority of content (Amia Isle, Khem, etc.) is original anyway. It's not just Amia, either. A lot of the NWN servers do it. I've spent hours researching the setting, reading about locations, cultures, and events. The worst is trying to sort out where certain lore falls in the timeline compared to the server I'm playing on. Spending hours reading about the Spellplague and trying to figure out what the hell it is was annoying in the first place, but then I find out it hasn't even happened yet and that my research was pointless.

I'll be the first to admit that Forgotten Realms is a good setting. It's widely varied, incredibly huge, and more developed than almost any other setting, D&D or otherwise. However, learning or understanding that content is difficult and frustrating for anyone who didn't grow up reading Salvatore or play D&D 90's and early 2000's.

Take a Balor, for example, and change its name to Greater Flame Demon. Anybody fighting it automatically knows what it is without having to spend a day on Wikipedia reading an ever-growing pool of articles that provide necessary context. I would consider that less work than trying to fit Amia into Forgotten Realms lore like a warped puzzle piece into someone else's 5000 piece puzzle.

But alas, tis too late now.

/endrant

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The original Endrak. In it to win it since 1994.

PLAYS:
Istavan de Almeida
Kaliya Rakharios

Amia is /based/ on FR. There's even a map to indicate where Amia would be, if it was FR. It's a great setting for basing character histories and such.

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