Well, this explains why my store hasn't sold many copies of the book. If a customer complains about it, I'm going to send them to this video. On the brighter side of life, I found a copy of Tall Tales of the Wee Folk in a bin for $5 at the local convention. One more book down on my to pick up list.
Most of the time, the end of edition Vecna adventure normally nuked the settings to allow them to conform to the new edition of D&D that is being introduce. I honestly thought that they were going to alter all settings introduced in the adventure to be multiplanar kitchen sink settings like Forgotten Realms.
And most of the time, the adventures are awful. The Time of Troubles trilogy was such a railroad it made this look like a sandbox. Vecna felt like a steamroller and the sundering was a complete mess. I thought they were going to nuke the settings with this book as well. Instead, we got a bunch of rehashed stuff from earlier modules. Don't know if that's a good thing or a bad thing.
It sounds like the people at WotC REALLY don’t care about the other settings (unless it gives them the opportunity to sue someone I suppose). Good gosh, changing Alustriel’s orientation out of nowhere was one of the tamer missteps they had. This is why I’m pivoting to Pathfinder. In all honesty thank you Mr. Welch and everybody else who worked on this new version for trying to honor the settings instead of cashing in for a quick buck.
No it wouldn’t, and again her orientation doesn’t bug me NEARLY as much as how little effort or thought was put into this book. Instead of a celebration of DnD’s history and variety, it was a shameless cash-grab
It was the obvious adventure to run, but their version was pretty mid. Hour of the Raven came up with the revised plot in 15 minutes. I'll take a timed adventure in a race against a black hole versus another haunted house.
@@Mr_Welch Although you could mix the two. Have a haunted house, floating in space, slowly being devoured from the bottom up by a black hole. The players need to run through a gauntlet of ghost encounters, to get to the spire on the roof, before they're pulled down and devoured by nothingness.
That bit with Dragonlance, oh man.... At least the Drow appearing in Wild Elves get explained, they're literal aliens. Anyway, major kudos to the amazing ideas and fixes here. This to me sounds like a functional campaign!
If the number of dragons and draconian doesn’t do it, the number of GOOD dragons and draconian will (Remember the Sorcerer-Kings of Athas Are post-Human DefilerWizards).
@@Mr_Welch or running around in a parka like Kenny form south park oh and traumatized by all the water and green . A Dragonlance character on dark sun what are you all crying about it is only one Dragon
I ran this with some personal edits. All my players had great time…especially my Darksun player he practically did a back flip once I started telling my other players their magic came with a deadly cost. My faerie rune player almost died of heat exhaustion cause he stubbornly refused to loose the heavy plate , but he came around after the first encounter. You should have heard my Darksun guy almost scream when I described a Lich-ified sorcerer king. I’ve played and dmed with him for years and I’d never seen turn that shade of white before 10/10 definitely makes me wanna run it again.😂
It's a weird tradition for D&D editions to end with a big dumb multiverse adventure during which Vecna's dastardly schemes cause the fabric of reality to change in order to "explain" why the magic system works differently now or something. This module apparently can't even get the Vecna part right, which I guess is par for the course for this severely underwhelming anniversary year.
Sora Katra annoyed about the time Vecna broke Eberron's even-harsher-than-mystsra barrier to screw with the setting back in DDO could be interesting though my friend and I do lean to eberron as a fully separate cosmology
Absolute gold mine of ideas, I especially like the opener and how the party gets together. I was thinking of putting together a Spelljammer game recently and now that this has you flying around in *THE* Spelljammer, that just works out nicely.
Appreciate your work Mr. Welch, as well as the other contributors to your Players Guide. Found out about it while listening to the interview you had at the BPL podcast on my way to work (I'm sure that is super old, but I started from ep. 1 a while back.). Wouldn't have known that it existed otherwise, the most exposure I had to the mystara setting was throug the capcom beat 'em ups. In any case, it's really nice to have a guide that is easy to understand that isn't Faerun or Eberron and not have to try and explain something to the people in my social group that aren't sweaty turbonerds.
On my homebrew campaign i used tomb of the lizard king for the intro adventure. Kidnapping, check. Otherworldly darkness, check. Weird cult vibes? Check.
Oh wow not surprised about the adventure as they can’t even recognise the gender of the male fighter on the front of the 80’s red box set let alone be familiar with the various settings they’ve been ignoring since 3e and includes eberron and that was 3.5!
This entire video is just an elaborate plot to get WOTC so mad that they make Mystara the default setting for OneD&D just so they can ruin it to spite you, isn't it? Clever plan. They aren't even ready for this level of 4D chess. Edited to add: Also, that "We're going to Athas" got me WEIRDLY hyped, and I never even really played that much Dark Sun. But if you're wanting to end 5e with a bang, and you're planejumping, Athas is absolutely the way to go.
Far left: Invents outrage culture. Also far left: Can't understand why people are making such a fuss about being told what to think and how to feel 24/7.
Can you even planeshift from Mystara? As it has always been relatively disconnected from other settings. Pretty sure Vecna would never have any presence there.
Regarding the wife, I think they should just made a new character and made her lesbian and maybe even written a whole interesting sidestory. I never like it when they change a character's story unless they specifically say " *This is alternate continuity* ". Ah, like Malaina. Perfect! The Dragonlance Werewolf Monty Python was spot on 😆 " *_shrug_*_ Welcome to Dark Sun_ " haha! I love these ideas! I wish there was an PDF and flavor text so I could read it! Seriously, this is one of the rare instance when I feel actual hype because it sounds fun and interesting. Absolutely fantastic 👌
Hey Mr. Welch, I know what would happen in Dark*Sun. They party would have to help with the first Avangion to appear in Dark*Sun. As far as I know there never has been one, would be appropriate for a 50th anniversary. The Avangion would fight the sorcerer while the weakened party takes the missing piece of the 7 rods. As you know there is no god's in Dark*Sun, vecna would stick out like a turd in a bunch bowl. Good Evil they would all hate vecna. Any kind of outside interference would be very unusual & upsetting to a creature of power in a Dark*Sun campaign. (Did you ask YT Michael Snow? - He would know for sure!) 1:20 Looks like a medieval Clint Eastwood, lol. Thanks Mr. Welch you have a wonderful day!
I'm not very familiar with Dark Sun past the basics. I asked the Reddit and they tried to make an epic high level adventure, the trick was making one the party could survive. I don't think Vecna would have anything to do with Dark Sun, that's why somebody put the rod part there. The magic changes were an attempt to mesh Dark Sun with 5e, as they are very incompatible.
Wow, what was that about a Welsh werewolf and something-something-yada-yada-gogold? I listened to that twice, and still couldn't transcribe it. But you managed to SAY it! That was a feat in itself... 😊
I'm not sure how to get ahold of you, so I'll ask this here. I think I found you on a terminal in Marathon Infinity. A secret terminal on the last level, "Aye Mak Sicur," lists you as one of the "other Real Decent People" that "ydnar" (a Double Aught dev) gives special thanks to alongside other notable members of the Marathon community such as Hamish himself. Any connection, or just a bizarre coincidence?
20:47 - *For the last time,* DragonLance featured Drow in the 2e module, DSL4 - Wild Elves (lvl 4-7). They even worshipped a spider demi-goddess, named Jiathuli. Nor was this a fluke (like that stupid plane-hopping, half-orc bounty hunter in the equally stupid Tasslehoff prelude novel)-- the "dark elf" that Raistlin fights during his Test of High Sorcery, is at least once referred to as a "drow," by Weiss & Hickman themselves. They exist, they're just not known outside of elven circles, and never meant to be player-characters.
I was at a convention many moons ago when Weiss was asked this question, specifically about that novel that everybody hates. She chalked it up to TSR not really caring about the Setting Bible anymore, concentrating on churning out content. She wasn't too happy about it, but what could she do? She is pretty defensive of her creations, as she set Larry Elmore straight on Goldmoon's pants. She did say to count dark elves as regular elves that have turned to evil, rather than physically different.
@@Mr_Welch - And the term "dark elf" is indeed used to refer to elves such as Dalamar, but the specific term "drow" is also used. This was also before _The Soulforge_ was first published in Dragon Magazine. I'm not saying that drow were meant to have any significant part in the DragonLance canon--- far from it-- but the two terms are not interchangeable.
@@fleetcenturion I think the problem lies with the naming convention used. DL dark elves are supposed to be social outcasts but not a subrace. If they have used any word but drow there wouldn't be the confusion.
DL Dark elves are 'cast from the light' due to having embraced evil in some way. Goes back to the creation and balance of the world. Elves represented good, ogres evil and humans neutrality. Salamat never had dark skin and white hair like drow and even the use of the word (in woulforge I think) could simply be silvanesti for one cast from the light...
@@Mr_Welch - Again, I don't disagree that the term "dark elf" in DragonLance almost always means an elf who is outcast from elven society-- although that wouldn't necessarily mean evil. Like it or not, unlike things like orcs and lycanthropes, drow made their way into the canon, via an official 2e module, published under TSR. It's hardly a lore-breaking role, and they were never meant to be PCs (Of course, they were never meant to be PCs in any other setting, either, except for an Underdark campaign.). I actually never stopped to consider why there weren't lycanthropes in DragonLance, except maybe to distinguish them from the shape-changing sea elves. I've always thought that D&D had far too many were-creatures anyway. I personally find it a lot less lore-breaking, than taking a setting that's meant to showcase different human cultures, then allowing every kind of furry and weird demihuman hybrid ever conceived in original D&D to be a player-character!
This seems complicated. Couldn't you just file off the serial numbers, change all the names, and go from there? I guess I'm an old school grognard, and so I fail to see why it needs to be so difficult to do this
Even after the OGL mishandling, I have been reluctant to bash WOTC/Hasbro, but after a forgettable Spelljammer, Planescape and Dragonlance release where the hype just didn't match the product released and critically missed content within those 5e books (e.g. Spelljammer: how do you have an environment as unique as Astral Space faring and provide no new classes, barely a handful of new feats, backgrounds, spells magic items and leave out any substantial spelljamming ship combat rules? ). I was holding my breath for Vecna: Eve of Ruin hoping that even though he looked like a design I would see on a Hot Topic mood board, surely with 50 years of lore they wouldn't build up such a historically dangerous but fun BBEG for over a year only to provide a reskinned Thanos Infinity saga roadtrip of bland photo ops in the Multiverse of previously released 5e modules with a Scooby Doo 3rd act??? Shame on me for giving in and buying yet another WOTC product that requires so much re-writing and patching that it will hardly be worth cracking the spine on the book let alone spending the money for both digital D&D Beyond and hardcover copies of it. As many have pointed out (including here) my experience with this book is that they really shit the bed with Vecna: Eve of Ruin showcasing a Ted Talk on poor game design, lazy writing, consistent shoehorned railroaded events, lack of attention to detail on any campaign lore/structure not Forgotten Realms and even that felt glossed over. I want WOTC to succeed with D&D, because that just means more D&D for everyone. I know it's easy to jump on the big evil money loving corporation meme but I have to admit defeat with this product. Publishing a poorly designed campaign that is barely run-able out of the box and calling it a feature where DM's are expected to fix it is going too far and it is a mantra that they have repeated time and time again. D&D owes much of it's success to the homebrew games that it's community has created for 50 years now and this of course allows DM's to personalize design to the group they play with which makes producing something that everyone will love difficult... But it doesn't mean that the official released content should be so terrible that a complete re-write is needed. Thankfully there is content like this to help me salvage the hot festering garbage that I just paid WOTC/Hasbro executives too much for. I have been playing D&D for over 30 years but have never played in Mystara but so many of the suggestions in this video fixes sooo much of what I find intolerable in the official release. Combined with the backstory of the Doomed Forgotten Realms modules... I feel like I have a road that will give my players the game they deserve. Thank you @Mr_Welch.
Those optional Dark Sun rules are just bad like it doesn't even fit how dark sun magic works. Anyways. Your version of the adventure was ok adjusted but I think a bit to annoyed. That being said it wasn't great And then the complete rewrite version is really neat
I wish inhad your vast knowledge of lore when it comes to characters and settings. Then again i havent player in many of these settings so looks like im grinding for books to get that knowledge.
Well, this explains why my store hasn't sold many copies of the book. If a customer complains about it, I'm going to send them to this video. On the brighter side of life, I found a copy of Tall Tales of the Wee Folk in a bin for $5 at the local convention. One more book down on my to pick up list.
Maybe people just don't like the plain hopping? I know I don't and people around me seem to dislike the whole spell jammer setting as well.
"Updated for an Awesome audience."
Can you make a pdf of this? This sounded absolutely awesome.
Most of the time, the end of edition Vecna adventure normally nuked the settings to allow them to conform to the new edition of D&D that is being introduce. I honestly thought that they were going to alter all settings introduced in the adventure to be multiplanar kitchen sink settings like Forgotten Realms.
And most of the time, the adventures are awful. The Time of Troubles trilogy was such a railroad it made this look like a sandbox. Vecna felt like a steamroller and the sundering was a complete mess. I thought they were going to nuke the settings with this book as well. Instead, we got a bunch of rehashed stuff from earlier modules. Don't know if that's a good thing or a bad thing.
No spoilers...but it did not seem to change much anything at all by the end of the adventure. 5E goes out with a whimper.
@@Ravenclaw74 no argument there
@@Ravenclaw74 Well, it's not like this new edition will actually change all that much...
11:28 Welcome to dark sun.
Great! 😅
"There are no Hin here. Now get in the cooking pot tallfolk."
When i heard "Rajaat Dracolich" I knew the players were *SCREWED.*
Can you please distribute a pdf with your notes about this adventure and your modifications?
lol I really enjoy the way you inject popular culture and humor into the topic. Great job as always!
I just wish I could have used the first joke about the werewolves rather than the still shot
It sounds like the people at WotC REALLY don’t care about the other settings (unless it gives them the opportunity to sue someone I suppose). Good gosh, changing Alustriel’s orientation out of nowhere was one of the tamer missteps they had. This is why I’m pivoting to Pathfinder.
In all honesty thank you Mr. Welch and everybody else who worked on this new version for trying to honor the settings instead of cashing in for a quick buck.
Didn't you hear? The man on the front of the red box BECMI Basic set fighting the red dragon is a woman now. So sayeth WOTC.
No he's not!😀
Pathfinder is even more woke than even WotC.
Alustriel could just be bisexual. That doesn’t contradict anything and high level types tend to be open to anything lol
No it wouldn’t, and again her orientation doesn’t bug me NEARLY as much as how little effort or thought was put into this book. Instead of a celebration of DnD’s history and variety, it was a shameless cash-grab
A masterpiece. You guys should publish this in DMs Guild.
What a coincidence cause I just saw your comment on a 2 year old video that basically predicted the plot of this module
It was the obvious adventure to run, but their version was pretty mid. Hour of the Raven came up with the revised plot in 15 minutes. I'll take a timed adventure in a race against a black hole versus another haunted house.
@@Mr_Welch Although you could mix the two. Have a haunted house, floating in space, slowly being devoured from the bottom up by a black hole. The players need to run through a gauntlet of ghost encounters, to get to the spire on the roof, before they're pulled down and devoured by nothingness.
That bit with Dragonlance, oh man.... At least the Drow appearing in Wild Elves get explained, they're literal aliens. Anyway, major kudos to the amazing ideas and fixes here. This to me sounds like a functional campaign!
9:52 😍😍😍 Also, best adventure idea ever.
Question would a Character from the dark sun setting just turn in to a gibbering pile of flesh on Krynn with all the Dragons?
If the number of dragons and draconian doesn’t do it, the number of GOOD dragons and draconian will (Remember the Sorcerer-Kings of Athas Are post-Human DefilerWizards).
He might be comforting himself with all his new cool steel weapons and enjoying temperatures in the double digits for once in his life.
@@Mr_Welch"So there's a lake over there, and you're not all killing each other for it?"
@@Mr_Welch or running around in a parka like Kenny form south park oh and traumatized by all the water and green . A Dragonlance character on dark sun what are you all crying about it is only one Dragon
They should be having panic attacks when they're told it's a whole setting under siege by _armies_ of dragons.
That's some amazing stuff you and actual heroes of the various realms have gathered together!
Thank you, to all that contributed!
This is WAY better. Also, Knights of Ebony sound badass!
I may be biased because I am in it :)
I ran this with some personal edits. All my players had great time…especially my Darksun player he practically did a back flip once I started telling my other players their magic came with a deadly cost. My faerie rune player almost died of heat exhaustion cause he stubbornly refused to loose the heavy plate , but he came around after the first encounter. You should have heard my Darksun guy almost scream when I described a Lich-ified sorcerer king. I’ve played and dmed with him for years and I’d never seen turn that shade of white before 10/10 definitely makes me wanna run it again.😂
Sounds like a better more interesting take on the vecna setting using elements from other settings is how i would do it awesome! 😎🤓🤟
JFC, did they make a module for Vecna because he was name-dropped in the fourth season of a show that only had one (the first) good season?
Don't worry he's barely in his own module
It's a weird tradition for D&D editions to end with a big dumb multiverse adventure during which Vecna's dastardly schemes cause the fabric of reality to change in order to "explain" why the magic system works differently now or something.
This module apparently can't even get the Vecna part right, which I guess is par for the course for this severely underwhelming anniversary year.
@@EvilDoresh dude, it ain’t a D&D tradition, it’s a tabletop tradition (pourin’ one out for my Warhammer Fantasy homies).
Sora Katra annoyed about the time Vecna broke Eberron's even-harsher-than-mystsra barrier to screw with the setting back in DDO could be interesting though my friend and I do lean to eberron as a fully separate cosmology
Upvoted for quoting No Leaf Clover in the opening.
Absolute gold mine of ideas, I especially like the opener and how the party gets together. I was thinking of putting together a Spelljammer game recently and now that this has you flying around in *THE* Spelljammer, that just works out nicely.
I love your gratuitous use of Winona Ryder & Nicholas Cage stills!
Appreciate your work Mr. Welch, as well as the other contributors to your Players Guide. Found out about it while listening to the interview you had at the BPL podcast on my way to work (I'm sure that is super old, but I started from ep. 1 a while back.). Wouldn't have known that it existed otherwise, the most exposure I had to the mystara setting was throug the capcom beat 'em ups. In any case, it's really nice to have a guide that is easy to understand that isn't Faerun or Eberron and not have to try and explain something to the people in my social group that aren't sweaty turbonerds.
I mean, Bi seems normal for an FR character, everyone's doin everyone overthere.
Yeah but it's a wife out of nowhere, not a lover out of nowhere.
I was aboutta say!
@@harmonlanager2670 But he has a better idea for it woth the crown
That Dark Sun section... Whooo! That's givin' me a big ol' stiffy! D4 per level is just delicious.
On my homebrew campaign i used tomb of the lizard king for the intro adventure. Kidnapping, check. Otherworldly darkness, check. Weird cult vibes? Check.
The Ravenloft/Spelljammer/Kas part?!
Chef’s Kiss, that was beautiful.
Oh wow not surprised about the adventure as they can’t even recognise the gender of the male fighter on the front of the 80’s red box set let alone be familiar with the various settings they’ve been ignoring since 3e and includes eberron and that was 3.5!
Amazing…
GrognarD&D at its best.
Goes to show, if you want something done well, ask the people who know what they're doing.
I had hopes this module would be a step up...oh well... I'll stick with my homebrew aetting then...
This is quality content.
This entire video is just an elaborate plot to get WOTC so mad that they make Mystara the default setting for OneD&D just so they can ruin it to spite you, isn't it? Clever plan. They aren't even ready for this level of 4D chess.
Edited to add: Also, that "We're going to Athas" got me WEIRDLY hyped, and I never even really played that much Dark Sun. But if you're wanting to end 5e with a bang, and you're planejumping, Athas is absolutely the way to go.
28:12 Bravo, Edutaining AF!
5:33 - The Story Arc Welder?
WOTC: "Put a chick in it! Make it lame and gay!"
Far left: Invents outrage culture.
Also far left: Can't understand why people are making such a fuss about being told what to think and how to feel 24/7.
Remind me to inject some 1300's Earth in my D&D with a burn the witch fun for the gay main NPC
God if it was Bargle instead of Kass I'd buy the book. Praise be my Dark Sun brothers and sisters
Again, you made a far better adventure than WotC. This was wildly entertaining.
Can you even planeshift from Mystara? As it has always been relatively disconnected from other settings. Pretty sure Vecna would never have any presence there.
Yes there are several Canon characters from the known world in other settings particularly planescape
Do you by any chance have this written down as a pdf or anything? 😅 definitely would run this version lol
I'm working on it. Several of the people that were involved wanted to make actual adventures on this but I can at least give a summary
After you converted this module, was it Excedrin, Tylenol, Advil, or Aleve?
Scotch
Regarding the wife, I think they should just made a new character and made her lesbian and maybe even written a whole interesting sidestory.
I never like it when they change a character's story unless they specifically say " *This is alternate continuity* ".
Ah, like Malaina. Perfect!
The Dragonlance Werewolf Monty Python was spot on 😆
" *_shrug_*_ Welcome to Dark Sun_ " haha!
I love these ideas! I wish there was an PDF and flavor text so I could read it!
Seriously, this is one of the rare instance when I feel actual hype because it sounds fun and interesting.
Absolutely fantastic 👌
Any chance this has got written up into a pdf?
@@sketchasaurrex4087 not yet I just wrote it up this weekend
@@Mr_Welch that's still momentum towards this cool rework. I can barely wait.
Awesome, a far better adventure than WotC's.
Hey Mr. Welch, I know what would happen in Dark*Sun. They party would have to help with the first Avangion to appear in Dark*Sun. As far as I know there never has been one, would be appropriate for a 50th anniversary. The Avangion would fight the sorcerer while the weakened party takes the missing piece of the 7 rods. As you know there is no god's in Dark*Sun, vecna would stick out like a turd in a bunch bowl. Good Evil they would all hate vecna. Any kind of outside interference would be very unusual & upsetting to a creature of power in a Dark*Sun campaign. (Did you ask YT Michael Snow? - He would know for sure!)
1:20 Looks like a medieval Clint Eastwood, lol.
Thanks Mr. Welch you have a wonderful day!
I'm not very familiar with Dark Sun past the basics. I asked the Reddit and they tried to make an epic high level adventure, the trick was making one the party could survive. I don't think Vecna would have anything to do with Dark Sun, that's why somebody put the rod part there. The magic changes were an attempt to mesh Dark Sun with 5e, as they are very incompatible.
@@Mr_Welch The Avangion is how the party would survive, it's the only way, lol!
Ah darksun my favorite
Oh this should have been the villains teaming up to discover they’ve been suckered by Vecna and they decide to team up to get revenge!
Wow, what was that about a Welsh werewolf and something-something-yada-yada-gogold? I listened to that twice, and still couldn't transcribe it. But you managed to SAY it! That was a feat in itself... 😊
Dw'n gallu siarad Cymraeg
I'm not sure how to get ahold of you, so I'll ask this here.
I think I found you on a terminal in Marathon Infinity. A secret terminal on the last level, "Aye Mak Sicur," lists you as one of the "other Real Decent People" that "ydnar" (a Double Aught dev) gives special thanks to alongside other notable members of the Marathon community such as Hamish himself.
Any connection, or just a bizarre coincidence?
Could be a coincidence, or they gave me shout out I didn't know about
@@Mr_Welch back in '97? I dont want to presume your Grognard status, but I wouldn't have guessed you were that well known 30 years ago.
@@encyclopediadumbassica6120 30 years ago would have been a coincidence. I didn't start becoming known for my writing until around 2002
@@Mr_Welch Cool, thanks for your time. now I know there are two Mr. Welch's loose...
20:47 - *For the last time,* DragonLance featured Drow in the 2e module, DSL4 - Wild Elves (lvl 4-7). They even worshipped a spider demi-goddess, named Jiathuli. Nor was this a fluke (like that stupid plane-hopping, half-orc bounty hunter in the equally stupid Tasslehoff prelude novel)-- the "dark elf" that Raistlin fights during his Test of High Sorcery, is at least once referred to as a "drow," by Weiss & Hickman themselves. They exist, they're just not known outside of elven circles, and never meant to be player-characters.
I was at a convention many moons ago when Weiss was asked this question, specifically about that novel that everybody hates. She chalked it up to TSR not really caring about the Setting Bible anymore, concentrating on churning out content. She wasn't too happy about it, but what could she do? She is pretty defensive of her creations, as she set Larry Elmore straight on Goldmoon's pants. She did say to count dark elves as regular elves that have turned to evil, rather than physically different.
@@Mr_Welch - And the term "dark elf" is indeed used to refer to elves such as Dalamar, but the specific term "drow" is also used. This was also before _The Soulforge_ was first published in Dragon Magazine.
I'm not saying that drow were meant to have any significant part in the DragonLance canon--- far from it-- but the two terms are not interchangeable.
@@fleetcenturion I think the problem lies with the naming convention used. DL dark elves are supposed to be social outcasts but not a subrace. If they have used any word but drow there wouldn't be the confusion.
DL Dark elves are 'cast from the light' due to having embraced evil in some way. Goes back to the creation and balance of the world. Elves represented good, ogres evil and humans neutrality. Salamat never had dark skin and white hair like drow and even the use of the word (in woulforge I think) could simply be silvanesti for one cast from the light...
@@Mr_Welch - Again, I don't disagree that the term "dark elf" in DragonLance almost always means an elf who is outcast from elven society-- although that wouldn't necessarily mean evil.
Like it or not, unlike things like orcs and lycanthropes, drow made their way into the canon, via an official 2e module, published under TSR. It's hardly a lore-breaking role, and they were never meant to be PCs (Of course, they were never meant to be PCs in any other setting, either, except for an Underdark campaign.).
I actually never stopped to consider why there weren't lycanthropes in DragonLance, except maybe to distinguish them from the shape-changing sea elves. I've always thought that D&D had far too many were-creatures anyway.
I personally find it a lot less lore-breaking, than taking a setting that's meant to showcase different human cultures, then allowing every kind of furry and weird demihuman hybrid ever conceived in original D&D to be a player-character!
I wanna be all critical and stuff, but mostly it's preach brother...
This seems complicated. Couldn't you just file off the serial numbers, change all the names, and go from there? I guess I'm an old school grognard, and so I fail to see why it needs to be so difficult to do this
These definitely are some of the most awesome set pieces from various settings. A showcase of the best 5e material just isn't that good :(
Even after the OGL mishandling, I have been reluctant to bash WOTC/Hasbro, but after a forgettable Spelljammer, Planescape and Dragonlance release where the hype just didn't match the product released and critically missed content within those 5e books (e.g. Spelljammer: how do you have an environment as unique as Astral Space faring and provide no new classes, barely a handful of new feats, backgrounds, spells magic items and leave out any substantial spelljamming ship combat rules? ). I was holding my breath for Vecna: Eve of Ruin hoping that even though he looked like a design I would see on a Hot Topic mood board, surely with 50 years of lore they wouldn't build up such a historically dangerous but fun BBEG for over a year only to provide a reskinned Thanos Infinity saga roadtrip of bland photo ops in the Multiverse of previously released 5e modules with a Scooby Doo 3rd act??? Shame on me for giving in and buying yet another WOTC product that requires so much re-writing and patching that it will hardly be worth cracking the spine on the book let alone spending the money for both digital D&D Beyond and hardcover copies of it. As many have pointed out (including here) my experience with this book is that they really shit the bed with Vecna: Eve of Ruin showcasing a Ted Talk on poor game design, lazy writing, consistent shoehorned railroaded events, lack of attention to detail on any campaign lore/structure not Forgotten Realms and even that felt glossed over. I want WOTC to succeed with D&D, because that just means more D&D for everyone. I know it's easy to jump on the big evil money loving corporation meme but I have to admit defeat with this product. Publishing a poorly designed campaign that is barely run-able out of the box and calling it a feature where DM's are expected to fix it is going too far and it is a mantra that they have repeated time and time again. D&D owes much of it's success to the homebrew games that it's community has created for 50 years now and this of course allows DM's to personalize design to the group they play with which makes producing something that everyone will love difficult... But it doesn't mean that the official released content should be so terrible that a complete re-write is needed. Thankfully there is content like this to help me salvage the hot festering garbage that I just paid WOTC/Hasbro executives too much for. I have been playing D&D for over 30 years but have never played in Mystara but so many of the suggestions in this video fixes sooo much of what I find intolerable in the official release. Combined with the backstory of the Doomed Forgotten Realms modules... I feel like I have a road that will give my players the game they deserve. Thank you @Mr_Welch.
Those optional Dark Sun rules are just bad like it doesn't even fit how dark sun magic works.
Anyways.
Your version of the adventure was ok adjusted but I think a bit to annoyed. That being said it wasn't great
And then the complete rewrite version is really neat
I wish inhad your vast knowledge of lore when it comes to characters and settings. Then again i havent player in many of these settings so looks like im grinding for books to get that knowledge.
I cheated and asked other lore channels and forums for everything that wasn't known world related
It's woke trash. Pass on wotc product and stick with original source material.