Can we nix the notion that FR lore doesn't apply to Arelith?

[RapidReload]

I know there are some slight differences due to accessibility, but I find the idea that Arelith is not based on FR lore to be frankly pretty gross. This is a NWN nights server for Dungeons and Dragons. All the source material is already there, and the world items, locals, and references are all designed with DnD in mind. Cordor is a vassal of Amn, not Outworld. Torm in this world is the Storm bringer, not Raiden.
House Freth in their Lore came from Menzoberranzan. If it was the Naruto server, sure. We can say FR realms doesn't apply to this, because we would all be Naruto running and portraying the very worst possible ninja we all could. Can we as a server break away from the notion that somehow we are not rooted in FR, when everything around us is literally FR?

If we as a server decide, no Arelith is not part of FR lore, well then let's get kooky with it! Time for me to make Leon Kennedy of the R.C.P.D. We'll make it the Soul Calibur of MMORPG's. No, no one wants that. We play this game because we like DnD. Most of us anyhow.

[Richørd]

Sorry but what are you on about?

[RapidReload]

Stated pretty clearly in the beginning that the issue is the idea that Arelith is not rooted in Forgotten Realms lore

[Queen Titania]

I'm afraid I'm with Richard, your post is not very clear. Please be more specific. What aspect is in line with this notion? Player mentality? An area in the module?

Your post is too vague and no developer could work with this. Arelith is based around FR Lore and almost everyone who is familiar with FR knows that, though a working knowledge of it is not required to play.

Thus your post makes no sense without much needed details and clarification.

[Aodh Lazuli]

Stated pretty clearly in the beginning that the issue is the idea that Arelith is not rooted in Forgotten Realms lore

But it is rooted in FR lore - And most everyone playing here knows it, and the vast and overwhelming majority respect and follow that, too.

I don't think I know of anyone who says it is not.


EDIT: Wait a minute, I think I've just figured out what this is about. I'm going to take a guess, so my apologies if I'm wrong.

Person 1: "Andunor isn't Menzoberranzan. It isn't really a drow-ruled city in the same way as that, so yanno, stop trying to treat it like it is."
Person 2: "WHAT!!? ARE YOU SAYING WE DON'T FOLLOW FR LORE ON ARELITH?!" *makes this thread*


Is that what's going on?

[Kreydis]

IIRC I think it might have something to do with that palemaster thread. Someone said something about not being FR friendly lore friendly stuff about balancing. I think that's how we got here?

[The GrumpyCat]

From my perspective (this is just me as a DM, not neccesarly the entire Team) Arelith is about 90% FR lore, and 10% it's own lore.

Also there's nothing wrong with be a little relaxed about these things, here and there. That's not to say that You should be playing a Jedi Master, or have your drow hang around in hotpants around Cordor... but if you want to make up a small random town for your human to come from, or a little bit of random lore, or anything mild and fun - go for it.

Arelith is based on FR lore, and most of it applies, but not all of it can. Not all of it is age appropriate, or multiplayer game-friendly appropriate and that needs to be kept in mind.

[The Rambling Midget]

FR Lore up to 1372DR applies to Arelith. That's where Arelith turns off into its own time stream and starts depending more and more on its own developed lore, because we're not the ones writing the sourcebooks.

[Lunargent]

Skullport is FR canon, by the way, all the way back to 2e.

[Borin Drakkmurl]

One thing that might be worth discussing, however, is the fact that at this point, after almost fifteen years of player driven history, the setting of Arelith has changed enough in relation to canon FR, that it might merit something more than just a FAQ.

Even if it were just one page giving the broadstrokes of stuff like deities, what AR means, how time works, and the overall settlements and races, it could help new players a lot. Specially considering the popularity of D&D 5E, and how a lot of it is focused on FR, we should expect some "culture shock" between what is going on in our server and the offical lorebooks.

If one wanted to be more granular about it, something like what I tried to do for the UD a few years ago could also work:

viewtopic.php?f=14&t=10795

(Most of the imgs are broken).

[JubJub]

I agree with Grumpy seems to me like Arelith is 90% FR and 10% it's own thing. SInce the server is RP and player driven it is bound to diverge in places. There is nothing wrong with that unless someone or the server started getting crazy with things. Like trying to change the entire history of a god or something.

[Sea Shanties]

I think most pen and paper campaigns diverge a little from sourcebooks. They're supposed to be a guide and inspiration for DMs running their own game not strict rulebooks sent down from the Gods that must be followed to the letter.

[The GrumpyCat]

Also, and this is something that I think people forget, - it's ok for a character to be /wrong/ about things.

Indeed often it's activly good for your character to be wrong. So long as you as a player generally recognise that, at least.

For example, (to briefly bring back the necromancy issue) Your -CHARACTER- can surely believe that raising the Dead is a good and natural process. That's fine. Just so long as you as a PLAYER recognise thta it is still, in general, an evil action.

You as a CHARACTER can believe that elves are all actually dwarves without beards, or whatever. That's fine. So long the player recognises that such a belief is wrong. Such dichotomies can actually be really fun to rp out.

[Aelryn Bloodmoon]

I suspect this sentiment is driven at the argument that is sometimes posted: "But this isn't Forgotten Realms, it's Arelith," as a counter to arguments that list multiple points of reference within the core setting that are well-reasoned, and someone dismisses the whole thing with a "THIS...IS...ARELITH" *Sparta Kick*

I have seen this argument fallaciously used to dismiss very valid points in the past, although I'm not comfortable with the idea of looking for threads and quoting people and I don't recall any specific individuals off the top of my head. I think what they're probably suggesting is something along the lines of not using the sentiment "but we aren't canon" to justify flagrantly RP'ing something contrary to the setting.

My own personal pet peeve in this particular vein of thought is the idea of wild magic, which literally causes damage to the weave over time, and in some cases can be observed and studied as fact in the realms in the form of wild magic zones (heavily damaged areas of the weave that cause all spells within it to become wild magic). The church of Mystra has agents that specifically seek these areas out to repair them. It's kind of a big deal to core lore, but everyone playerside and topside seems to shrug it away because our wild mages "aren't canon."

This forces those attempting to play devout Mystrans into an extremely awkward position; I'll utilize myself, for example. I consider myself, as a player, friendly with multiple players of characters in the Arcane Tower faction, and I greatly enjoy RP'ing with some of them. My character is very much militantly active against agents of Shar and Bane, and in matters where people as he sees it "abuse the weave." He should be, at some point, actively attempting to stop people from using wild magic.

The problem with the execution of this IC act is that the players of said wild magic users and condoners have been told Arelith is not canon and their wild magic doesn't necessarily work the same way. They are justified and have a right to expect that my character shouldn't have the moral high ground in this situation, and would be correct to see me as an instigator and possibly even breaking the Be Nice rule by attempting to ruin their permitted narrative. So even though this aspect of the world is incredibly important to my character, I've stopped bringing it up entirely (edit: IC, obviously ).

TL;DR
Sometimes, the stance "Arelith is not canon" is very inhibiting to the narrative. I hate seeing it used as an argument, because it's never used in what I feel is the intended spirit, which is that Arelith's story has diverged from canon because our canon stops at 1372 DR, and we have progressed past that point without the authors' help. It shouldn't be used to hand-wave core character obligations. All that lore up to 1372 still exists until we blow it up like Wharftown.

[Memelord]

I can give a third to Aelryn and OP stating that people do, on a fairly regular basis, use "not needing to worry about FR canon" or "FR lore not applying strictly to Arelith" as excuses to not need to stick within reasonable boundaries of canon/to just do whatever rando-stuff they want - without calling specific people out by digging through old threads and quoting people.

It is something that happens and I don't think it's a particularly great attitude for the server to have as a whole - you have plenty of wiggle room to work in without grossly breaking the boundaries of the setting's canon - plus having an agreed upon baseline for people to draw information and inspiration from gives us something to ground our narrative against, which is important from a storytelling perspective.

[Durvayas]

Honestly, at this point the thread is just going to devolve into circular logic of "No U" and "U R doin' It wrong". Lock?

[Marsi]

Arelith is about 90% FR lore, and 10% it's own lore.

I only wish that ratio was higher. It's much cooler to see homebrew factions/history arise from within playerbase itself than the same old inorganic and never changing factions/conflicts/feuds exported from the mainland.

I don't think it's a controversy to say that much of FR's lore is a drag (or outright weird) with the exception of a few islands of quality. Honestly, most of the time I defer to real life history or literature when sourcing character inspiration and aesthetic. Some effort will however go towards tying it in to FR place lore. I see no problem with this so long as its in keeping with the spirit of FR/kitchen sink fantasy and that the non-FR qualities are subtle enough that only the most #CandleKeepForum dude would be enough of a pedant to care.

[Tarkus the dog]

What the hell is FR?

[CosmicOrderV]

Free Ride, baby. You hoppin' in?

[Ebonstar]

I know there are some slight differences due to accessibility, but I find the idea that Arelith is not based on FR lore to be frankly pretty gross. This is a NWN nights server for Dungeons and Dragons. All the source material is already there, and the world items, locals, and references are all designed with DnD in mind. Cordor is a vassal of Amn, not Outworld. Torm in this world is the Storm bringer, not Raiden.
House Freth in their Lore came from Menzoberranzan. If it was the Naruto server, sure. We can say FR realms doesn't apply to this, because we would all be Naruto running and portraying the very worst possible ninja we all could. Can we as a server break away from the notion that somehow we are not rooted in FR, when everything around us is literally FR?

If we as a server decide, no Arelith is not part of FR lore, well then let's get kooky with it! Time for me to make Leon Kennedy of the R.C.P.D. We'll make it the Soul Calibur of MMORPG's. No, no one wants that. We play this game because we like DnD. Most of us anyhow.

um just to be clear when did Talos retire from being the Stormlord, Torm is the Watcher, and Freth was destroyed in 1319 DR, since you are calling for clarity

[Aelryn Bloodmoon]

that only the most #CandleKeepForum dude would be enough of a pedant to care.

I didn't realize we were on these kinds of terms- but may I humbly suggest that if people disagreeing with you and enjoying the lore of Forgotten Realms that is there to research and make use of bothers you, that I'm not being pedantic for wanting canon lore that we haven't specifically altered ourselves to apply, I'm just shaping my playstyle within the world we all... you know... signed up to play in. Because it's so cringe-worthy we couldn't be bothered to find other worlds.

My bad.

[Seekeepeek]

just a guess of what his talking about for my personal perspective.. i might be wrong.

Often in the build section it's said that NWN isn't the forgotten realms.
since it's a game and balance and stuff have to work together like feats, abilities, skills ect.

it's not to be misunderstood with the fact, that the scene we play on as actors/characters isn't the forgotten realms.
it's just the game mechanisms isn't so.

[Sartain]

My take is that unless the server actively diverges from it, Forgotten Realms lore is the default canon. Of course, with the (IMO) excessive love of FOIG you won't necessarily know if there are any divergences from lore relevant to your character until many levels in, potentially.

[JediZero]

I believe it's more that while Arelith is based on FR lore, some things may not be specifically in line with it. For instance, the Devils pouring out of Light Keep. The Pact Primeval presumably prevents the devils from just attacking anyone who wanders by because they don't steal souls, they either are given them as punishment, or they buy them from mortals. If we used strict FR lore, any devils that wandered out of the Light Keep portal and attacked people would be more or less immediately de-powered due to breaking said race wide pact.

Or there's the longtime fact that if you wanted to enchant a weapon, Enchantment was the school to use. Whereas instead in FR lore and mechanics, Transmutation was the real school it belonged to, as it's the school based around taking something and making it different, whereas Enchantment has always been about messing with people's heads. Even in game you can see that just about every spell that buffs weaponry is a transmutation spell.

^^^^ What they said.

[Zed]

The issue with having arelith *not* adhere to FR lore is the fact that there is no true recording of the goings-on for arelith that players can immediately get to and reference.

If there was a document within the wiki that both specifically stated that arelith is a branch off of FR and "heres the major events your character would likely know about coming onto the island either through npc rumors or otherwise"

It would be easier for a lot of players (especially new players) to reference without breaking into spoilers.

Past events would be great, not everyone knows about wharftown, benwick etc..

It would be nice to have a sort of "players lore handbook" of COMMON knowledge things for reference