#dungeonsdragons — Public Fediverse posts
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A Timeline of The World Story
Last post before the big new story beat, I swear it.
It’s been a while since I started the world story; it’s been a couple of months since the last adventure or true chapter in said story. Despite my own convictions to avoid retconning anything I write, things have changed, and a few events have been… shuffled around a bit to better fit with some new directions I took with the lore
Highsun 20th 499NMR: Murtagh Ó Ceallaigh is contacted by Ailénach, Queen of Hexes, with an offer to empower him in such a way that he could claim the throne of New Mountainheart. Murtagh shortly afterward joins the anti-royalist faction of New Mountainheart and manipulates the others into making him the leader
Fall 499NMR: Murtagh starts putting plans for the Beltane Coup into motion. He recruits Arthur Paxton Sr. as a supplier of gunpowder and small arms, promising him a title. He also recruits a force of Orc landsknechts and freelancers by promising that he will grant the orcs territory beyond the northwestern border of the realm and recognize Orkkholm
Greenleaf 1st 500NMR: Murtagh Affair: The Antiroyalist faction led by Murtagh Ó Ceallaigh, Countess Muirín Uisceanna, Count Thorsten von Blühdorn, and Marquess Fuklke Von Sablemere- along with half the barons of the kingdom- launches a coup in the middle of the Beltane Ball at Castle Sliberberg. Meanwhile, a false flag operation by antiroyalist mercenaries stages a fake attack by fey from the hexmires. Between them, the Antiroyalist factions succeed in taking over New Mountainheart. Fredrick is shot with a cold iron bullet, falls into a coma, and is dragged to Tansy Fleetfoot by his squire, Lorcan Ó Ceallaigh.
Suncrest 1st 500NMR: The Liberation of Sliberberg campaign starts: Fredrick wakes from his coma and meets the player characters by chance. They form the Sliberberg Resistance.
Suncrest 13th: The Battle of Fasgadhmara: Antiroyalists led by Murtagh attempt to storm Uisceanna Palace in an attempt to capture Fredrick based on reports that Muirín had captured him and had decided to keep him. Fredrick slips away in the fighting. Muirín disappears, presumed dead.
An annotated map of the Alteburg and surrounding streetsHighsun 1st: The Alteburg Raid. The resistance led by Fredrick mounts a raid on the Alteburg via underground passageways. The raid frees the prisoners in the jail and makes off with a large number of Guildenmarks from the mint and weapons from the arsenal.
Highsun 17th: The Battle of Fort Carrey: The resistance tries to take Fort Carrey. They are repulsed with huge casualties as Anitroyalists reveal a new weapon: matchlock muskets and mass cannon fire.
(Meanwhile, Fredrick, with the hag fey pagan druid Magglerinda and her flock’s assistance, splits Aoibheann’s soul between two bodies: her true body, in the valley of New Mountainheart, and a specially prepared body created by Fredrick. Aoibheann awakes screaming.)
Highsun 27th: The Grand Army Campaign: Deeming the resistance effectively dismantled after their rout at Fort Carrey, Murtagh and his grand army march out of Sliberberg to conquer the Silver Highlands.
Harvestmoon 1st(Midsommer): The Sliberberg Uprising: Fredrick and Aoibheann lead a general uprising against anti-royalist forces. By 5 pm, all anti-royalist resistance has ceased.
Harvestmoon 21st. The Battle of Eberwald. Princess Kaida von Mountainheart and a small force of loyalists to King Fredrick engage Murtagh’s Grand Army. The royalists are routed, and Kaida is captured.
Goldleaf 1st: The Siege of Sliberberg. The Grand Army returns to Sliberberg, with hostages, and lays siege. Murtagh demands that they surrender the city or he will kill Kaida. Fredrick has three days to respond.
Goldleaf 3rd: The Sliberbergian Gambit: In a desperate gambit, Fredrick invokes his right as a Faerie Knight to settle the matter through trial by combat. Murtagh, being a fellow Faerie Knight, is compelled to acquiesce to his demand. Fredrick emerges victorious from the duel. Murtagh kills himself after revealing that he forced everybody in the highlands to swear an unbreakable faerie blood oath to whoever rules New Mountainheart. The Ó Ceallaigh have finally achieved their generational project.
Goldleaf 5th: The Fall of Castle Blühdorn: The newly established royal army storms Castle Blühdorn. The defenders fight until they are completely wiped out, including Countess von Blühdorn. Only about 3 dozen survivors emerge from the castle, including the last two members of the von Blühdorn family, 2-year-old Tristan and 6-month-old Hilda.
The Restoration
Map of the Silver Kingdom Including Canton, Castle and Town NamesGoldleaf 5th: Birth of the Silver Kingdom: Fredrick and Aoibheann declare that New Mountainheart no longer exists and that from hence the realm will be known as the Silver Kingdom. They begin reorganizing the government and laws of their newly expanded realm. Vast infrastructure projects are planned.
Emberfall 28th (Samheim) Adventure: Mama’s Little Villages: At the tail end of a month-long royal tour of the kingdom, the royal couple arrives in Paxton’s Crossing to hold court at the Samheim fair held for the citizens of the New Tay Valley. Unfortunately, Aoibheann’s adopted daughters, Marigold Meadows, Whimsy Glade, and Lillabella Hollow, arrive looking for her, causing pandemonium. Aoibheann is forced to use her powers to turn the three of them into little girls.
Yulemoon 20th: The Royal Wedding: After several months of persuasion from friends and family, Fredrick and Aoibheann hold an official royal wedding.
501NMR The Grand Undertaking
Blossombud 28th. Start of the Great Undertaking: Fionnuala the Fair arrives in Sliberberg; she pitches the Grand Undertaking to Fredrick and Aoibheann, revealing her nature as a divinity, Domhannau’s role as a prison for her insane father, Faolan, and her plan to stop it. She also starts ingratiating herself with the royal children.
A newly rejuvenated Muirín also returns to the city and imprisons her daughter, Aeliana, in her palace.
Greenleaf 1st Beltane: The Beltane Affair: Disguised as Aeliana, Muirín tries to seduce Fredrick using magic during the Beltane Ball and ends up in a catfight with Aoibheann. At Fionnuala’s urging, Aoibheann changes reality (Quote: “I wish you would just get your own version of Fredrick”); Muirín is now married to Fredrick’s (previously nonexistent) younger selkie brother, Lord Admiral Klaus, and is now a slavishly devoted teenage fangirl of Aoibheann and has been since she was a little girl. Fionnuala reveals to Aoibheann that she is a godling and daughter of Morpheus, the divinity of dreams. Fionnuala dubs Aoibheann’s newly developed power Retconn.
Greenleaf 2nd: Fionnuala gathers a group of her godchildren(player characters) and recruits them to the Undertaking.
Greenleaf 5th: Adventure: Into the Scraplands. Fionnuala dispatched the player characters to investigate problems with the development of her mysterious “Device.” The party arrives in Ginkdimblid via Ginkdimblidi airship and discovers that the trouble is that the “lead” artificer Thistlewick has vanished on a salvaging run. No one has found any sign of his knarr. They discover that a tribe of kobolds has shanghaied Thistlewick to repair their god: the legendary locomotive dragon Cinderthrax.
Greenleaf 17th: Birth of the SSG Railway: Fionnuala the Fair arrives at Ginkdimblidi for a test of the prototype. Convinces the Ginkdimblidi, HMLS Endeavor, and Cinderthrax to build a railroad down to Slanach
Suncrest 13th: Adventure: The Liberation of Charlotte Evermore: Fionnuala the Fair tasks the player characters with their second mission. They are to convince Mainspring, by any means possible, to enter the Undertaking as a manufacturing hub. The players depart on the Magic schooner Fairwind.
Mainspring Circa September 501NMRHighsun 10th: Charlotte Evermore returns to Slanach and persuades Fionnuala to transform both herself and the Clockfolk into fully living beings. In return, Mainspring pledges its immense industrial capacity to the Grand Undertaking.
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Ravenloft joins a growing list of yet unrealized tabletop screen adaptations
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Ravenloft joins a growing list of yet unrealized tabletop screen adaptations
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Ravenloft joins a growing list of yet unrealized tabletop screen adaptations
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Ravenloft joins a growing list of yet unrealized tabletop screen adaptations
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Ravenloft joins a growing list of yet unrealized tabletop screen adaptations
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Humble Bundle Features Dungeon Masters Guild Adventures
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Cuppa and Catch Up, Long Time No See!
https://www.thedragonchronicle.com/cuppa-and-catch-up-long-time-no-see/
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Thoughts on the Forgotten Realms Subclasses UA
You may wonder what this is if you read the previous blog post. This is actually the kind of content I want to be able to post. I want to have an opinion, be moved to write about it, and post it. The formalized process and the schedule are the things that work against me, but I’m not going to stop having opinions. The difference is, I’m not going to open up various other subclasses and do a deep analysis to make sure I’m shoring up my points. I may be wrong or off the cuff, and if I am, I hope you let me know.
This discussion first came up on the THAC0 with Advantage Discord, so please, if you haven’t already, consider joining our Patreon, joining our Discord, and listening to the podcast. I’d appreciate it. This is a slightly edited version of my thoughts after being asked about the most recent Unearthed Arcana, looking at the subclasses that might be included in this Fall’s Forgotten Realms releases.
The Subclasses
Bard: College of the Moon. I actually like the College of the Moon. It has a nice mechanical call back to 1e Bards and the Moonshaes, which was very tied to the druidic-themed bards of that era. It kind of steps on the College of Spirits with tying abilities to “stories,” but that’s not that weird for a bard, just not something we’ve seen framed that way outside of the College of Spirits.
Cleric: The Knowledge Domain. This revision doesn’t bother me except for one thing (mechanically), and that’s Unfettered Mind, which means Intelligence checks will be largely pointless for this character after 6th level unless they’re extremely difficult. That feels too early for that kind of ability, and it leans back into that problem of showing that a class or subclass is good by just not having the class need to roll for anything.
Fighter: Purple Dragon Knight. Even if you want to have a fighter subclass that’s a dragon rider, I think you still have some awkwardness with the 7th-level ability because being allowed to use a medium dragon as a mount, even though it’s too small, feels like you’re awkwardly riding something, and to me that feels less cool than feeling like you’re a competent dragon rider riding something that can be ridden. I’m still trying to work out the hesitance to make it large at 7th-level, since the statistics are still keyed to the character, not to an existing stat block. Its not even like it interacts with emanations much, which would be wider with a large creature than a medium one. 15th level before you can picture your character riding a properly sized dragon doesn’t feel good to me.
Paladin: Oath of Noble Genies. Oath of the Noble Genies is a conceptual issue for me, regardless of lore. I think a paladin’s oath is about DOING something for a reason or stopping something for a reason. There are a number of oaths, a lot of them 3rd party, that do what this subclass does, where it doesn’t play with the core fantasy of a paladin. “I have sworn an oath to do genie stuff and oppose non-genie stuff.” I don’t get a strong roleplaying vibe from that.
In fact, one of the big selling points of the 5e paladin is that they are so devoted to doing a thing, championing a CAUSE, that they don’t necessarily have a specific deity, and the gods just kind of say, “yup, that’s a champion of THING, they need these powers.” But this is “I think these genies need to be followed, so I serve them,” which doesn’t feel like a paladin oath to me.
Ranger: Winter Walker. The problem I have with the Winter Walker is that you are a ranger from the scary cold, hunting scary things that live in the cold. And you do extra cold damage. That’ll show those yetis, cold light walkers, and white dragons who’s boss. By that, I mean someone who doesn’t do extra cold damage that those creatures can ignore. Yes, if you take this ranger and adventure in non-cold environments, but it’s a weird disconnect that they’re less effective in their native terrain because of this.
Sorcerer: Spellfire Sorcery. The Spellfire Sorcerer actually does what I would expect from the setting material it’s drawn from. It’s not as powerful as most spellfire wielders have been portrayed, but it does what they do, in a toned-down manner, and when they get higher level, they can start looking more like the raw, elemental channelers of the Weave that they’re supposed to be. I’m kind of cool with that.
Rogue: Scion of the Three. My issue with the Scion of the Three will sound like a setting issue, but it’s almost more of a marketing issue. The italicized text might as well say this subclass exists because Baldur’s Gate III made over a billion dollars. One of the things I saw lauded in various places about the 2024 Player’s Handbook’s character creation process was “ask to see if an evil character is okay.” It feels weird to actively encourage not just nuanced evil characters but someone kind of revels in murder as a player character option.
The Lore Behind the Subclasses
Fighter: Purple Dragon Knight. The Purple Dragon Knights have nothing to do with amythest dragons. It’s very weird that in the designer videos, it seems to bother them that there wasn’t a more direct thematic tie between calling an order of knights “The Knights of the X Dragon” and literally giving them powers based on that dragon type. That makes it feel like the expectation of everything in the setting is that there will be a very obvious game-related reason for every name, without any symbolism or nuance. Is it going to be a problem if the Red Wizards of Thay aren’t all literally red?
I don’t think works as a dragonrider knight as well as it could, but it has nothing to do with Cormyr as a Purple Dragon Knight. It’s taking something intrinsically Cormyrean and trying to say, “Yeah, maybe these were kind of related to Cormyr, but now they’re not associated with a single country and are all about working with amethyst dragons.” That’s even weirder because why are amethyst dragons more likely to bond with a knightly order than other dragon types, other than coopting an existing name?
Gold, Silver, Bronze, Red, and Blue have all been associated with dragon riders and militaries in other settings, but Amethyst dragons are obsessed with multiple realities and collecting obscure knowledge. Other than trying to make the name of the subclass painfully obvious, there is no reason to make this a class associated with the knighthood of Cormyr. If anything, if you REALLY wanted to connect this to the Realms or Baldur’s Gate III, make this a class tied to, but not limited to, Githyanki, and make sure you can use red dragons and maybe a few other types as well, with this subclass. I know they won’t go this route because it’s more obscure, but if you really wanted an order of dragon-riding knights to serve as a basis, Impiltur has traditionally had dragon riders in its history. But Impiltur is even further away from the Sword Coast and less commonly mentioned than Cormyr.
Cleric: Knowledge Domain. It’s minor, but the marketing-driven lore bothers me. In the description of the Knowledge domain, the primary gods associated with Knowledge are mentioned as Asmodeus, Mystra, Savras, and Jergal, and then “less-common divinities” like Deneir, Oghma, and Azuth are mentioned. The introduction is contradicted because Oghma and Gond were mentioned up front, but then the rest of the description walks all of that back.
Jergal is an obscure deity that many people in the Realms don’t even remember. He has a role in Baldur’s Gate III, but the narrative doesn’t imply that Jergal is a major deity, even in Baldur’s Gate III. It’s very careful to frame him as an obscure god who gave his power to Bane, Bhaal, and Myrkul in the distant past. Oghma, Deneir, and Azuth are all much more well-known deities. Yes, people may know who Jergal is from Baldur’s Gate III, but if they were paying attention, they’re probably going to wonder why he’s so well known now all of a sudden.
Paladin: Oath of Noble Genies. There are genies in the history of Calminshan. The genies Calim and Memnon both formed nations in the region and went to war with one another. The region and its cities still bear their names, but they were bound into a gem before Calimnshan was formally founded. Neither genie was particularly well regarded. In the 4e era, Memnon and Calmin were freed, went back to war with one another, installed genasi as leaders in the region, and generally treated the humans of the region pretty badly.
We haven’t seen much of Calimnshan in the 5e era, but we know Calim and Memnon were overthrown and banished back to the elemental chaos/elemental planes. Basically, it was the same broad reboot that the rest of the Realms received, so we just generally know that Calimnshan is being pieced back together, probably in a manner that looks similar to what it looked like in the late 3e era . . . maybe.
That gives us a few issues with having well-known and established paladins with an Oath to serve genies:
- Its unlikely they would be drawing power from all four genie types when there was only a Djinn and an Efreet involved in the region
- Servants of these genies aren’t likely to be working with one another since Calmin and Memnon have constantly been at war with one another
- Servants of both genies would probably be seen as oppressors in this era, given that the genies put genasi in charge and specifically enslaved or oppressed the humans of the region
I know they may not want to play up Djinn and Efreet being in an eternal war—I don’t know—but that doesn’t mean Calmin and Memnon wouldn’t have been at war, establishing separate, competing empires in the region in ancient times. They may not want to play up genasi enslaving humans in the name of the genie lords, but it would be strange to try to change Calim and Memnon from generational villains to revered rulers.
Rogue: Scion of the Three. There is no reason that a rogue that is supernaturally invested in murder would be a “Scion of the Three” and not just a “Scion of Bhaal.” Even if you want to lean into the Baldur’s Gate III storyline, three distinct, contentiously allied faiths were working together. You had a Chosen of Myrkul, a Chosen of Bane, and a Chosen of Bhaal, not a champion of all three. It’s not just design dictated by marketing; it’s design that’s only engaging with the surface level of the game rather than its actual content.
Ranger: Winter Walker. The Winter Walker ranger leans heavily into being a ranger from a cold land beset by vague cosmic horrors and undead, which is the theme of Rime of the Frost Maiden, but it’s never been a theme of Icewind Dale before that. It’s fine as a theme for that adventure, but it becomes this strange thing where a type of ranger has emerged that caters to a state that has only existed in Icewind Dale for a decade? If this is the new “theme” of Icewind Dale, what does the place look like when you resolve Rime of the Frost Maiden? If you aren’t playing that adventure, is it the default that Auril always imposes eternal winter unless you play through those events? It feels like we’re only going to get this new theme, which was the consequence of Auril being trapped there and causing the eternal winter in recent years.
I understand they want very distinct, easily communicated themes, but those themes feel very thin and very obviously tied to very specific, singular storylines. Icewind Dale does have a theme of having lost places that are difficult to find because of the weather and being the corner of the world where people go to lose themselves. That theme ties into Honor Among Thieves, and Honor Among Thieves even flies in the face of Icewind Dale, which is a horror setting.
Without Auril and the eternal winter, it’s still pretty damn cold most of the time, and we’ve established the following about the region:
- Outcasts and people wanting to start over live in Ten Towns
- The Lord’s Alliance established a prison in the region because it sequesters undesirables far away from most of the Sword Coast, and only daring, charming, movie-worthy heroes would manage to escape
- Because of the remote location, ancient civilizations have ruins there that have gone unexplored, which has been a theme both in Rime of the Frost Maiden and the Icewind Dale video games
It’s also just a wee bit strange that the description of the Winter Walker implies that there may be multiple fallen cities from Netheril in the city, which kind of seems like overkill, given that there weren’t that many Netherese flying cities to begin with.
Broader Lore Thoughts
I understand wanting to have clear themes, but there are clear themes and thin, single-note regions. It seems strange that not only is Icewind Dale being limited to cold/horror themes but also that Cold Walker rangers are so focused on being “Icewind Dale” rangers that an order of rangers with those competencies isn’t framed as having additional origins like Vaasa or the Great Glacier. This is even stranger when you have the opposite problem with the Purple Dragon Knights being taken from specific to Cormyr to being a broader organization across Faerun.
I’m not sure what’s driving these kinds of decisions except to ruthlessly design so that something can only be a single thing. Even then, it’s strange that the single thing for one subclass is “you’re from this one region,” and the single thing for this other subclass is “you can’t be from just one region.”
I’ve said this several times, but I will revisit something I’ve said before, across multiple editions. As much as I love the aspects of the Realms that appeal to me, if you are remaking large parts of the Realms to fit broader D&D concerns, then don’t use the Realms; make a new setting that can hold your new assumptions. If you want to use Baldur’s Gate III to sell books, then you should realize that Baldur’s Gate III had substance because it used the texture that already existed in the setting, not because it redefined large sections of the setting and ignored other aspects.
There is a big difference between “See, Jergal is a thing you recognize from Baldur’s Gate III” and “Jergal has the position he has in the story because of the backstory of Bane, Bhaal, and Myrkul, that’s been circulating since at least AD&D 2e products.” I’m not calling for a devotion to extreme minutia. Canon for the sake of canon is bad, and it keeps people from engaging with the setting. However, continuity has to be more than identifying proper nouns for it to have any meaning. It’s not easy to find that middle ground, but that’s why the people in the industry who can do it manage to make their work shine.
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