32 replies to this topic

[Zireael]

Another favorite is the note you find in Gorion's chamber (in the unmodded bg1 game). That note said he and your mother had been lovers on and off again through their youth, that she had died in childbirth, and that he had taken you in out of loyalty to her memory. Fine and dandy, but quite a different story to the one presented in TOB .

Yeah, that bit irks me too. There was a theory that both versions are true, or a theory that said Gorion lied in BG1...

[jube]

fair enough, on the balance of things i am persuaded by tempest's view of totally separate settings, it seems to fit the cannon as presented better than a single universe with separate bits.

and i see what you mean about infinite realities as only part of Planescape setting

but given that, would the answer to the original question not be, "read the FR rule book with a magnifing glass, and if it does not give you a clear view you are stuffed ". Cos none of the other material in the rest of the D+D universe applies at all, apparently not even the rules. And what do i do about spelljammers? , so if they visit sigil then pop to the sword coast, thats sigil and the sword coast in the spelljammer setting not sigil in Planescape, and sword coast in Forgotten realms, so the spelljammer setting copies all the ones it touches? Well suppose that works within the concept.

No ethreal travel between campaign settings is a real problem for my mod, i need to do a lot of thinking and maybe abandon the idea.

[Tempest]

I've read about the Kozah/Talos connection through google. One of the things that drives me crazy about the BG series is the inconsistency. For instance, C. Nib was telling the miner that the tomb was ancient, that the gods of netheril would have been young when it was sealed. Wouldn't that have been before the human gods existed? Thus, Kozah could not be Talos (tho Talos could have assumed his portfolio after his death).

The human gods include some of the oldest in existence - Selune and Shar have been around since the creation of the world. Talos is a very, very old, very, very powerful god. He most certainly could be Kozah.

[TDouglas]

so if they visit sigil then pop to the sword coast, thats sigil and the sword coast in the spelljammer setting not sigil in Planescape, and sword coast in Forgotten realms, so the spelljammer setting copies all the ones it touches? Well suppose that works within the concept.

No ethreal travel between campaign settings is a real problem for my mod, i need to do a lot of thinking and maybe abandon the idea.

I think the Ravenloft setting may come to the rescue here. Keep in mind that plane has a nasty tendency to "latch onto" other planes -- I guess it can graft itself to other planes for a time to do it's damage (whether sending it's minions to the new plane or (more often) dragging elements of said plane into itself).

No reason you couldn't use similar logic in your own mod

[Tempest]

Even so, I'd be leery of doing anything cross-setting: Ravenloft has no canonical connection to the Realms (or Eberron, the settings I'm familiar with) as far as I'm concerned. If you want to do a cross-setting mod, I'd say do it, but state that it's non-canonical.

[jube]

Ok now totally lost.....went to wiki,looked up vecna

"Ten years later, in the second edition Dungeon Master's Guide (1989), Vecna's history was expanded under the description of his Hand and Eye. This information was further developed in 1993's Book of Artifacts.

With the release of the adventure Vecna Lives! in 1990, written in support of The City of Greyhawk boxed set, Vecna finally appeared in person, re-imagined as a demigod, and the chief antagonist of the adventure. At the end of the adventure?presuming the players defeat Vecna?he is transported to the Ravenloft campaign setting.[7] However, it wasn't until 1998 that there was a Ravenloft-centred follow-through, Vecna Reborn.[8]

In 2000, Wizards of the Coast released the last adventure to be written for D&D's 2nd edition rules, Die, Vecna, Die!, a three-part adventure tying Greyhawk to the Ravenloft and Planescape campaign settings. In this adventure, Vecna was given the rank of a lesser god"

Ok am i wrong or does that say Vecna appears in Greyhawk, Ravenloft, and Planescape campaign settings, and that these settings are tied together by him ???????????? And am assuming thats the same vecna, not 3 different Vecnas ??? Given the separate campaign cannon isnt that impossible ???

[Tempest]

Boxed adventures are weird and should generally be ignored unless the events actually appear in a sourcebook. Don't get me started on the kind of mess you'd have to deal with if you did take boxed adventures as canon (why hello there, Expedition to the Barrier Hills!).

[TDouglas]

Hmmm, I wonder to what extent the Planar Prison would be considered "cannon" for FR? The concept is grounded squarely in Planescape (as is the entire planar gem quest and all its actors, for that matter) .

Ya know, the BG series is far from consistent in it's own story line, much less FR cannon. If I were you, I'd just assume that the players are no longer in the FR setting when they start going after Vecnas artifacts and have done with it.

Such is the theory behind Ravenloft anyhow. You walk through the strange mist and are suddenly in a different plane ... it's now your problem to figure out how to get back .

[jube]

ok poped onto the Forgotten realms Wiki (http://forgottenreal....com/wiki/Oerth)

"Oerth is home to prominent wizards such as Bigby, Drawmij, Tenser, and Mordenkainen whose spells have spread even to the Forgotten Realms. Mordenkainen is an acquaintance of Elminster Aumar's; the two have met on numerous occasions at Ed Greenwood's house on Earth to exchange spells and lore.[1] Mordenkainen, when he had newly mastered interplanar travel, used to visit Waterdeep with some regularity.[2]

In the book Passage to Dawn by R.A. Salvatore, when Harkle Harpell enters into an unorthodox contest of wizardry with the Sea Sprite's wizard Robillard, Harkle and Robillard cite a number of Oerthly wizards, including Bigby, Melf, Otiluke, and Tenser. "Robillard blanched despite his own impressive display. Of course he knew of Bigby! He was one of the most powerful and impressive wizards of all time, on any world."[3]

The Oerthly bard Gwydiesin of the Cranes has also chatted with Elminster on occasion.[4]

Both Elminster Aumar and Khelben "Blackstaff" Arunsun have spent time on Oerth, and Elminster suspected that Khelben Arunsun the Younger settled there to begin a life away from the elder Khelben.[5] "

Assuming this is correct, and Derived from the Forgotten realms setting content itself, ( have yet to check the reference notes, but wiki is usually pretty good ) then i think my history/universe setup will fit within the cannon quite well !! I think i can make a very powerfull argument for every piece of of my universe as long as connections can be made, but if the above is wrong/misleading then i need to continue down the route of rewriting things.

Unfortunatly i am and always have been a bit of a d+d purist ( i even loath the rule changes past rev2 ) so if i cant make my ideas fit into the agreed D+D universe then thats it, start again or give up.
At the moment the VecnaV23 mod is quite big, by next year it will be one of the biggest mods in terms of new content and game hours. All this NEEDS to be based on firm D+D rules and principals, i dont want people saying " yea great mod but breaks the rules "

[Tempest]

Again, I don't think that stuff comes from the actual sourcebooks. You'll only get the purists on your case, and I won't be among them - but I would point out that you know it's not entirely true to canon, but that's not important to most people. FR's seen some really weird crap over the years and editions.

[jube]

Yep just checked the refs and all come from Dragon Magazine and unofficial ( actually i think one is " official" at least the cover looks TSR ) FR add-ons. Dragon magazine though is close to cannon ( i remember Fiend Folio 1 and 2 came 95% straight from Dragons pages with VERY little change ) but not quite since some of the articals were pure crap, I would have to find a direct or indirect reference to " campaign travel" within the original FR campaign box set ( which luckly i have in original glory ) i assume.
I think the Vecna mod story line is prob still a go, so far DEFINATLY not cannon, but in the spirit of lots of other addon material which is also not quite cannon, i certainly dont mind standing next to Die Vecna Die !

Ya know, the BG series is far from consistent in it's own story line, much less FR cannon. If I were you, I'd just assume that the players are no longer in the FR setting when they start going after Vecnas artifacts and have done with it.

Such is the theory behind Ravenloft anyhow. You walk through the strange mist and are suddenly in a different plane ... it's now your problem to figure out how to get back

Thats a fair idea, i would be effectively taking them to my own campaign setting, BUT i have to explain how they get there ( the connection ), if not to them then to myself

Your right on your previos post i could use that pocket plane Ravenloft is located on, it does indeed mention links to other campaign settings within its core material, but its bloody complicated !! LOL

[TDouglas]

Thats a fair idea, i would be effectively taking them to my own campaign setting, BUT i have to explain how they get there ( the connection ), if not to them then to myself

I wonder if you've ever seen the movie "Cigarette Burns" by John Carpenter? In a lot of ways it was a cheap rip off of "The King in Yellow" series of short stories by Robert Chambers, but it offers you an interesting approach to your problem.

In both cases, the protagonist is trying to deal with (or find) a cursed object (a play in Chambers version, a movie in Carpenters). Point is, the very act of searching for it draws you into the curse. In the above cases, this meant a plunge into madness on the part of the searcher, but in your case getting close could catapult the characters into the alternate setting. You could use Ravenloft logic here, leaving it up to the characters to find a way to get back to where they started (if they ever can).

Also, the planar gem comes back to mind ... if you can find one, there's no reason to believe yet another might not be lurking about somewhere (which might be simpler for you to mod around ). Easy enough to create one that's keyed to a specific area (namely your campaign setting). Finding one that can take you back could be a whole different can of worms tho (hey, no one ever said those things had to work both ways ... in fact they were one way travel in PS:T).

Then again, PS:T gave you yet another option: gates. They need a specific key to open (which would likely NOT be easy to gain), and again it's one way (depending on whether you're as evil as a GM as I am ).

Lots of interesting possibilities to choose from, many more can be dreamt up by a particularly fiendish GM lol.

[Miloch]

There is an Ethereal Plane in the Realms, but it is not linked to Greyhawk's. By canon, Greyhawk and the Forgotten Realms are not linked and you cannot travel between them.

Actually, they are linked. I've heard more than one (canon) reference, but here is one (which jube mentioned but not specifically the text from it):

The Phlogiston, a rainbow-colored chaotic liquid that surrounds the spheres, has a strong current that flows from Realmspace directly toward Greyspace, making travel in that direction relatively simple;

Meaning you can actually sail from Toril to Greyhawk, and that relatively easily - nevermind spells and gates and who-knows-what that can get you from one to the other. Now, I don't know who screwed the idea that there are all sorts of worlds on the same "material plane" (i.e. the "universe") but it is indeed a messed up concept that there need to be all sorts of different material planes (there don't - we have enough problems with the other planes). It is quite possible 3rd or 4th edition came up with some silliness that wasn't present in 2nd edition (where I'm pretty sure, as the quote says, they were just separate worlds in separate systems or "spheres" in the prime material plane).

Edit: also by "canon" the ethereal plane is omnipresent on all planes but the outer ones (i.e. Hell/Baator etc. which are linked indirectly via the astral plane instead) therefore linked to all such material worlds, but that could be another source of contention - perhaps in Hasbro-world they are instead linked with a giant circus complete with evil clowns etc. .

Edited by Miloch, 22 September 2011 - 10:59 PM.