The Woman in the Well and why Corellon Sucks

Look, let me be clear: This is a safe space for the haters of Corellon Larethian. I can’t attest for how well and how long I’ve been able to hold this opinion, but after watching this lengthy video from Distracted Elf, it crystallised a whole variety of things I assumed were ‘pretty much true’ in the timeline of my experience with Dungeons & Dragons.

Corellon Larethian is an ongoing character, a god, from the Forgotten Realms. His origin is the 1980 book Deities & Demigods by James Ward and Robert Kuntz, which introduced the character, and then he – and yes, I’m using he for Corellon, fight me for the gender identity of a fictional character – was further developed by his integration into the Forgotten Realms by one Ed Greenwood.

One could pick through Corellon’s over-detailed mythic history for days, and it’s great fun to do that, because the guy sucks indescribably, and I think it’s important to hold to the actual textual values of the thing we pay money for. 4th Edition Dungeons & Dragons is my favourite edition but make no mistake, it is not perfect, and because I like it so much, when I find the ways it sucks, it stings all the harder. 3rd edition was written by bozos, 5th edition is for newbies, but 4th edition shouldn’t have awful writing in it, it’s the one I like. Anything in the other forms, that’s not my circus and not my monkeys, but I know where this particular poo was flung from.

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Thanks Gemini for calling my 4e D&D adventure from ~15 years ago that few probably remember a "classic." Also, nice tips on dealing with rodent infestations.

#DND #DND4E #AI #Gemini

Nations of Cobrin’Seil: Foh-lah Rah-Jah-Pha-Urd

https://cobrinseil.invincible.ink/nations-of-cobrinseil-foh-lah-rah-jah-pha-urd/

How To Be: Blue Mary (in 4e D&D)

How To Be is a blog series I created to address the claim that Dungeons & Dragons 4th Edition (the Best Edition) stifles creativity and limits the kinds of characters you can make. While that’s true, in that you can largely only make Dungeons & Dragons characters (who are good at doing things for Dungeons and for Dragons), there’s still a lot of room to create in that genre. The series is therefore about picking characters to make them in Dungeons & Dragons 4th Edition (the Best Edition), and I select them through a careful process of throwing a bunch of ideas into a spreadsheet and seeing which ones randomise up. There are characters who are challenging to construct, where I have to find some way to represent the aesthetics of one type of violence-doer in a system that doesn’t have them, and those are really interesting challenges that can involve creative problems that are really hard to solve.

And then there are characters I pick because I think they’re dope and they’re really easy.

That’s what we’re doing this time.

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Nations of Cobrin’Seil: Foh-lah Rah-Jah-Pha-Urd

There is a timeline of empires on Bidestra. There was the First Elves’ attempts to own it; there was the Tiefling Empire, if you believe in it. There was the empire of Fuszaint, the most recent one, in its miserable decline. But before Fuszaint, there was the first great Human Empire, the empire of the creatures known now as Ogres, Ogre-Magi, Hags and their ilk; it was the Empire of the Urd. What it was, though, is not as important as what remains of its greatest seat, its capital, its palaces; for they are gone now, torn apart by nature itself, stripped of its identity, and returned in safe pieces to the loam that they once polluted. This is what remains. This is the land that outlasts empires, the trees that do not need anyone to speak for them, and the great regrowing that must be done to restore the scarred land. This is Foh-Lah Rah-Jah-Pha-Urd.

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How To Be: Rimuru Tempest (in 4e D&D)

Isekai is an overcrowded genre of media in which a few works stand tall. Some of them are just enduring classics of the form, things like Escaflowne and El Hazard, works that served to crystallise a genre. Some have been successful beyond all reasonable ken, like Sword Art Online. Resultant from that has been a whole diversifying ecosystem of isekai stories that expand on the narrative wishes of their increasingly specific wants. As an example, the want to not go to work, and suddenly being hot enough to be voiced by Miho Okasaki.

That’s right, it’s…

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Nations of Cobrin’Seil: Honaj

https://cobrinseil.invincible.ink/nations-of-cobrinseil-honaj/

Nations of Cobrin’Seil: Honaj

Let me take you afar to a wonderous placeOf sunshine and flowers and sands,Where the land has a scar cut deep in its faceIt was broken, and yet it standsWhere water is bitterAnd honey is sweet,And the blade of the prince gleams brightDock your boat, come ashore,Have a drink, have one more!And begin your Honaji new life~!

Basic Island, by Mark Poole (Source)

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4e Druid Stuff (That I Just Made Up)

I make no secret that one of my favourite character classes in Dungeons & Dragons 4th Edition (the best edition) is the druid. After a 3rd edition period where I feel that bringing a druid to the table and using it to its utmost is basically a kind of social cruelty, what with how powerful they are, the druid of 4th edition had a lot to live up to, and it couldn’t. Instead of trying to replicate 3rd edition’s quite frankly ridiculous panoply of powers, the 4th edition Druid instead is designed to be an interesting class about as powerful as the other classes which can do interesting things in its own right.

You know that thing about how when you’ve been the recipient of overwhelming privilege, any cessation of that privilege feels like oppression? That. Wizards and Clerics got it too, but fuck them. I like Druids so I’m talking about Druids this time.

The Druid of 4th edition stripped the concept back to its studs. A druid in 4th edition Dungeons & Dragons is a nature-themed spellcaster who can turn into an animal-like form, and each form is equally capable of doing things to fulfill a role on a team. The druid can be seen as a binary of in and out of wild shape, and out of wild shape, they’re basically a spellcaster. In wild shape, they are a secondary role, which is usually something like an off-defender or an off-striker. This made some people unreasonably mad, because multiclassing to add healing to a druid was an affront to their moral senses I guess.

I get pretty defensive about the 4th edition Druid, but that’s not to pretend it’s perfect by any means. In the effort to take care of things and ensure that the Druid doesn’t start climbing up the tower of its previous power, the writers glowered at it and showered it with options that were just… a little… sour.

I think that the 4th edition Druid, as much as it’s a class I love and works fine, could do with a little help in choice support, and maybe some of the options available to it are a bit crap.

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4e: Technical Seams

Every single time I hear people describing the wording of a 5th edition magical spell or a 5th edition character ability I feel like I’m listening to the fall of an empire and it’s because there was something that the game had solved and was good at that 5th edition seems to have wanted to throw the hell away. That is technically written rules.

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