Believe it or not, I do still have interest in games other than Unknown Armies. Radically different games, even. I’ve been entertaining the idea of getting back to my RPG origins and running D&D 4e. As much as I hate the clunkiness I associate with a turn order and a physical board and minis, I have been wanting to engage the board game design-y, tactical combat-y parts of my brain for a while and this is certainly a much better outlet for that than 5e.
Before the nuts and bolts of encounter design, though, I want to make the setting my own. If you didn’t know, 4e makes the bold (for D&D) and wise choice to acknowledge that it has assumptions about the kind of world you run it in. Even more interestingly, the “points of light” style it has verges on post-apocalyptic; major settlements are rare, the wilderness in between is dangerous, and nations don’t really exist. There’s also a unique cosmology that deviates in some neat ways from the D&D formula, while retaining all the racist, colonialist nonsense. Whoops.
In this post I’m going to riff on this post on Prismatic Wasteland, an OSR staple that I recommend reading first, if you haven't already. It even references 4e! From there I will be getting gnostic and subversive with 4e’s cosmology and setting assumptions in ways that will likely not surprise readers familiar with my politics.
The following are statements in the core books (PHB1, PHB2, MM1, DMG1; I haven’t looked at the rest yet):
All of the PHB1 gods (except Melora and, to a lesser degree, Sehanine) have a shared imperialist goal.
All of the gods in the PHB1 and DMG1 except for Gruumsh, Lolth, and Tharizdun are opposed to demons and the abyss, and they are all opposed to the primordials.
The gods’ supposed values directly contradict each other (eg. Bahamut is a god interested in freeing the oppressed while also being the god of oppressive institutions like nobility) or contradict their purported mutual animosity (eg. Kord and Bane have nearly identical portfolios.
The material plane (and the Shadowfell and Feywild) were created by the gods. Their creation was opposed by the primordials, who also removed the latter two from the former out of spite.
Primal spirits represent a balance between the gods and the primordials, and were only created after their struggle.
Empires never last for very long, and the world in the present exists without any kind of unified civilization.
“Civilization” (that is, unified empire) is the product of collaboration between the PHB1+2 races; the “monstrous” races do not have any kind of counterpart in scale or level of unity.
Following the creation of the material plane, the primordials’ agency is greatly deemphasized compared to the gods, and there are none with specific names or characterization as individuals (aside from those that became demon princes; Demogorgon, Baphomet, and Orcus).
Tharizdun is portrayed in the core books as creating the abyss and subverting several primordials to his side as demon princes, with the goal of supreme cosmic power as an individual. This drove him insane and led to his imprisonment in the abyss and erasure from the culture of mortals (hence there being no mention of him in the PHB1 or PHB2).
The abyss is not portrayed as able to mount a meaningful opposition to the gods; demon princes and Tharizdun only have disparate cults with their own apocalyptic projects, Lolth is either insane or scheming indefinitely, and Gruumsh is dedicated to a fruitless, eternal war with Bane.
The elemental chaos and the primordials predate the gods, and the primordials are said to oppose the stability and longevity of the material plane.
Player characters are just more special than everyone around them. They’re heroes, they play by different rules, they have unique agency and the capacity to reach an epic level of power, on par with the demon princes, who are just below the gods in terms of power.
The divine power source comes from the gods, and the primal power source comes from primal spirits. Martial and arcane power seem to be the results of exceptional personal skill.
Sigil, the main settlement in the Astral Sea (and thus center of the gods’ “civilization” in their own realm), is ruled by The Lady of Pain, who is not a god (as she’s not mentioned in the gods section of either DMG1 or PHB1).
These ideas lead me to the conclusion that:
The voice of the core books is an unreliable narrator (much the same as that of Keep on the Borderlands, several decades earlier) who is aligned with the gods and against the primordials.
There is probably less dissent and disagreement amongst the gods, including the “good” and “evil” ones, than the core books indicate. They are all proponents of cosmic order in the Moorcockian sense, as well as sharing imperialist and colonialist goals. Thus, the gods are kind of analogous to the capitalist class or feudal monarchs; they have supreme (astral) power while the other occupants of the universe have to settle for subservience and obedience.
Melora is likely a figurehead for the primordials’ agenda (chaos/untamed wilderness) among the gods, with minimal influence, if she even really exists. I could also see her being a turncoat/”reformed” primordial; there’s a precedent for primordials changing sides in the demon princes.
There must still be some kind of powerful cosmic opposition to the gods’ goals, because of the difficulty their imperial projects routinely face. It seems like monsters are the primary vehicle for this opposition, perhaps more than “monstrous humaoids” that still tend to worship the gods.
There is more to the story of the abyss. It may not really be part of the elemental chaos, or perhaps represents a failed project of the primordials, because multiple of the gods are aligned with the demons, its residents. Regardless, it is not likely to be the basis of cosmic chaos.
The primordials are likely more anarchistic than “chaotic,” opposing the gods’ cosmic colonization and the way much of the universe they created was stolen and made the vehicle for the oppression of all the mortal races of the material plane, Shadowfell, and Feywild. Perhaps this even persists in a metaphysical sense; is death really an inevitable truth, or is The Raven Queen’s domain just part of the imperial engine of the gods?
The following are the questions I think thus need answering to fully flesh out the campaign setting provided:
Why are PCs empowered with greater potential than all other mortals?
Are the primordials really proponents of cosmic chaos antithetical to the existence of mortals? If not, what is their actual agenda? What have they been doing since they lost their war with the gods and the material plane got made?
Do primal spirits really represent the balance, when they occupy and are a product of the material world, which is the result of the gods’ victory over the primordials? Relatedly, what is Melora’s deal?
What’s stopping god-backed empire from permanently taking root? Or, put another way, what makes monsters so numerous, and why do they seem to inherently oppose law?
Who (or what) is the Lady of Pain? Is she the head god?
What’s the deal with Tharizdun and the abyss? Did Tharizdun really get driven insane by choosing to utilize “evil”? Is he really a god, and was he always? Is the abyss really part of the elemental chaos, and if so, does that mean it’s in alignment with the primordials?
My answers to
these have yet to take form, although I have a vague vision for a
campaign setup, framed by the recent and mysterious magical
obliteration of the capital city of the “civilized races’” most
recent doomed empire. I plan to have more 4e stuff on here
eventually, in between the ongoing Statospheric Saturdays posts,
which will continue as long as I continue to have the free time and
motivation to write them.
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