Beginning with allied races as an incentive to level them up all the way rather than simply race-changing or boosting them, Blizzard released race-themed transmog sets as a sign that you had done just that. While I'll never forgive them for having the Lightforged heritage helmet cut off my paladin's glorious beard, they're generally pretty fun to have.
In 8.1, we now have heritage sets for older races - the Blood Elves and Dwarves (of the non-Dark Iron variety.) That's pretty exciting, and also interestingly timed as my next two alts in my grand alt-priority queue to do the new content are, in fact, my Blood Elf and Dwarf characters.
I imagine these established-race heritage sets are going to have a gradual rollout, with Tauren and Gnomes coming in 8.2 (already have those guys at 120 and exalted with their home factions since probably Wrath of the Lich King.) I'm super-eager to see sets for Draenei (of the original blue flavor,) Worgen, and Goblins. But I also wonder about, for example, the Undead.
See, while one of my two major Horde characters (always jostling for Horde main - I just wish that I were better at Subtlety because my damage on the rogue always seems way lower than the gear should be giving me) in Undead, there's actually a new source of quite a bit of Forsaken-themed gear out of the Darkshore warfront.
Indeed, my main, the human paladin, is currently rocking most of the top-tier Arathi warfront gear set (still need I think only the shoulders now.) If we wanted human heritage armor, I think you'd be hard pressed to find a better example than the Arathi plate set. Likewise, Orcs can use pretty much any of the Arathi sets and look very Orc-appropriate.
Darkshore brings us sets inspired by the Night Elves and Forsaken.
Now, I'll confess that I'm a little less impressed with these designs - primarily the Night Elf ones. My main Night Elf character is a Demon Hunter, and the leather set here feels far more Druidy. The plate set has some very strange contours. On the other hand, the Forsaken-themed sets on the Horde side are generally very cool. Sadly, the only one I don't really care for that much is the leather set, though primarily just the spiked-hood look of the top tier helmet. The mail set, on the other hand, is fantastic.
But it does make me wonder if they won't bother doing Human, Orc, Undead, or Night Elf heritage armor given how relatively easy it is to attain these sets (I do wish there were an easier way to get the top-tier stuff. I have three plate-wearers at 120 now, so that should help collecting it, but man is the Mail going to take a while.)
Friday, December 14, 2018
Thursday, December 13, 2018
The Night Warrior and Darkness in the Alliance
Tyrande becomes an avatar of Elune's vengeance after tossing a severed Orc head into a Moonwell.
The Night Elves lost big at the outset of this expansion - bigger than just about anyone. While the Forsaken lost Undercity, they had had plenty of time to prepare and evacuate the city, ensuring that most of their civilians were safe in Orgrimmar before the Alliance carved a path directly through Brill and up to the gates of Lordaeron City. The Night Elves have endured massive loss of life, as the civilian population taking shelter from the Horde's attack burned when Teldrassil was set aflame.
In the Terror of Darkshore cinematic, which plays after the quests that introduce the Darkshore warfront but feel like they ought to take place either well after or in some kind of alternate continuity, we get to see the Night Elves actually striking fear into the hearts of the Horde for a change. A Horde convoy is torn apart in moments by a furious Malfurion - bonus points to Mal for the Orc who is swallowed by the earth as grasping roots choke the life out of him.
The Horde has had some opportunities to turn to the Alliance and say "now who are the real bad guys here?" even if the answer is usually someone else. But it's very rare for the Alliance to actually come off not as self-righteous but truly scary in a monstrous way. Since Cataclysm came out eight years ago, I've always felt the Worgen were underserved because we never really got to see that side of them. Having played an Undead character starting in Vanilla, I can tell you that the Worgen felt like a huge threat in the early levels, but Blizzard's emphasis on Gilneas as a fundamentally human kingdom, even if some of those humans were afflicted with the curse, always undercut it.
The other thing that undercut the monstrousness of the Worgen was the presence of the Forsaken, who always seem to be able to go lower and more cruel.
And that, unfortunately, is also in effect in Darkshore.
Because ultimately, what the Night Elf "change" amounts to so far is simply that they are willing to fight back. Tossing Orc heads into a Moonwell is creepy, sure, but it's not as if they weren't willing to kill Orcs before, and given what they went through, it doesn't seem like that much of a violation of norms in Azeroth.
Because what we see on the other side of things is that the Forsaken are raising Night Elves to serve as Dark Rangers (or Dark Wardens.) There's a continuity issue here given that a big part of the plot in Silverpine was that the Val'kyr could only raise humans - giving the remaining humans in the area the incentive to willingly become Worgen and encouraging the 7th Legion to send only non-human troops to assist the Gilneans. The notion that the Val'kyr can, in fact, raise Night Elves contradicts this - but hey, it's 8-year-old lore and sometimes you need to change things to make it more dramatic.
The problem, though, is that we are once again faced with the problem we had then - the Forsaken, sort of by definition, are supposed to have free will. Yet we see both Sira Moonwarden and Delaryn Summermoon immediately declare their allegiance to the Forsaken upon their raising - Sira mere moments after she died fighting the Horde.
It could be an interesting plot point to show that Sylvanas has been lying about giving her people free will, but this has been a plot problem for so long that it seems as if it's just something Blizzard doesn't really feel like addressing.
And to me that feels particularly galling as someone who really likes playing Forsaken characters. The Scourge faded to the background long ago, but the Forsaken felt like they were meant to exist as a contrast against the Scourge. When you played through Tirisfal Glades prior to Cataclysm, you more or less began in a dizzied haze, suddenly aware of your undead nature, with the Scourge on one side and the Scarlet Crusade on the other, both trying to murder you. The Forsaken were the normal people who just happened to have been cursed with undeath, and you banded together to preserve your freedom.
The Will of the Forsaken racial ability, for example, suggested that the Forsaken valued that free will above all else, and were better than most at resisting mental manipulation because they had suffered so long under the very worst kind of domination.
The Alliance has plenty of potential to go dark with its populations. The Worgen are literal monsters. The Night Elves can be remorseless feral guerillas. The Dark Iron Dwarves can be chaotic madmen. The Void Elves can literally erase you from existence. Even the Lightforged Draenei, seemingly empowered by one of the "good" primal forces, seem poised to be zealous inquisitor-types with a "kill them all and let the Light sort them out" philosophy.
But if: A: we don't see a more sympathetic side to the Forsaken and B: we don't see the Alliance unleashing their worst violence upon the more sympathetic Horde races, like the Tauren, Trolls, or Blood Elves, it's always going to feel as if the moral authority within the conflict belongs only to one side.
The Night Elves lost big at the outset of this expansion - bigger than just about anyone. While the Forsaken lost Undercity, they had had plenty of time to prepare and evacuate the city, ensuring that most of their civilians were safe in Orgrimmar before the Alliance carved a path directly through Brill and up to the gates of Lordaeron City. The Night Elves have endured massive loss of life, as the civilian population taking shelter from the Horde's attack burned when Teldrassil was set aflame.
In the Terror of Darkshore cinematic, which plays after the quests that introduce the Darkshore warfront but feel like they ought to take place either well after or in some kind of alternate continuity, we get to see the Night Elves actually striking fear into the hearts of the Horde for a change. A Horde convoy is torn apart in moments by a furious Malfurion - bonus points to Mal for the Orc who is swallowed by the earth as grasping roots choke the life out of him.
The Horde has had some opportunities to turn to the Alliance and say "now who are the real bad guys here?" even if the answer is usually someone else. But it's very rare for the Alliance to actually come off not as self-righteous but truly scary in a monstrous way. Since Cataclysm came out eight years ago, I've always felt the Worgen were underserved because we never really got to see that side of them. Having played an Undead character starting in Vanilla, I can tell you that the Worgen felt like a huge threat in the early levels, but Blizzard's emphasis on Gilneas as a fundamentally human kingdom, even if some of those humans were afflicted with the curse, always undercut it.
The other thing that undercut the monstrousness of the Worgen was the presence of the Forsaken, who always seem to be able to go lower and more cruel.
And that, unfortunately, is also in effect in Darkshore.
Because ultimately, what the Night Elf "change" amounts to so far is simply that they are willing to fight back. Tossing Orc heads into a Moonwell is creepy, sure, but it's not as if they weren't willing to kill Orcs before, and given what they went through, it doesn't seem like that much of a violation of norms in Azeroth.
Because what we see on the other side of things is that the Forsaken are raising Night Elves to serve as Dark Rangers (or Dark Wardens.) There's a continuity issue here given that a big part of the plot in Silverpine was that the Val'kyr could only raise humans - giving the remaining humans in the area the incentive to willingly become Worgen and encouraging the 7th Legion to send only non-human troops to assist the Gilneans. The notion that the Val'kyr can, in fact, raise Night Elves contradicts this - but hey, it's 8-year-old lore and sometimes you need to change things to make it more dramatic.
The problem, though, is that we are once again faced with the problem we had then - the Forsaken, sort of by definition, are supposed to have free will. Yet we see both Sira Moonwarden and Delaryn Summermoon immediately declare their allegiance to the Forsaken upon their raising - Sira mere moments after she died fighting the Horde.
It could be an interesting plot point to show that Sylvanas has been lying about giving her people free will, but this has been a plot problem for so long that it seems as if it's just something Blizzard doesn't really feel like addressing.
And to me that feels particularly galling as someone who really likes playing Forsaken characters. The Scourge faded to the background long ago, but the Forsaken felt like they were meant to exist as a contrast against the Scourge. When you played through Tirisfal Glades prior to Cataclysm, you more or less began in a dizzied haze, suddenly aware of your undead nature, with the Scourge on one side and the Scarlet Crusade on the other, both trying to murder you. The Forsaken were the normal people who just happened to have been cursed with undeath, and you banded together to preserve your freedom.
The Will of the Forsaken racial ability, for example, suggested that the Forsaken valued that free will above all else, and were better than most at resisting mental manipulation because they had suffered so long under the very worst kind of domination.
The Alliance has plenty of potential to go dark with its populations. The Worgen are literal monsters. The Night Elves can be remorseless feral guerillas. The Dark Iron Dwarves can be chaotic madmen. The Void Elves can literally erase you from existence. Even the Lightforged Draenei, seemingly empowered by one of the "good" primal forces, seem poised to be zealous inquisitor-types with a "kill them all and let the Light sort them out" philosophy.
But if: A: we don't see a more sympathetic side to the Forsaken and B: we don't see the Alliance unleashing their worst violence upon the more sympathetic Horde races, like the Tauren, Trolls, or Blood Elves, it's always going to feel as if the moral authority within the conflict belongs only to one side.
Monday, December 10, 2018
Building My Eldritch Knight Fighter
While my tastes have always gone in various directions when it comes to RPG classes, the Ur-Class that I've always wanted to play was a Battlemage - a heavily-armored fighter wielding arcane magic channeled through a massive war hammer.
I don't know where I got this image, but before I played many (Western) RPGs I always thought of it as a classic trope up there with the Paladin. Yet I searched through game after game and never quite got the right feel. You could manage it in Elder Scrolls decently, given that you're able to basically design your own classes in those, but it wasn't quite the same.
Then I found the Eldritch Knight, and my eyes lit up - I'd finally found it after all these years.
One of my friends is planning on running a 1-shot with the main purpose of forcing another friend's wife (the second friend and the wife, who is also my friend, are my roommates) to finally play D&D with us.
As my group's DM, I rarely get a chance to play a character myself. I did get a chance earlier this year to play my most-wanted character, the Great Old One Warlock (Neutral Good! Insane Good?) which was really fun if limited at levels 1 and 2 (though holy crap did it pick up at level 2, getting eldritch invocations and a second spell slot.) However, for this 1-shot we're starting at level 3, and that means I get to play an Eldritch Knight Fighter - aka my long-sought Battlemage.
Fighters are a class I feel is pretty acceptable to meta-game as (obviously you can do so with any class if you want - you can still RP with a character optimized for combat.) While I love RP-enhancing spells like Prestidigitation, I feel like there's a special license for an Eldritch Knight to really focus on combat spells, and that's what I've done.
I picked a Blue Dragonborn as the race - mainly for aesthetics. I like lightning as an elemental damage type and a dragon-person feels like a good choice for someone both strong an magical. I realize that a Githyanki would probably be the ideal choice for total min-maxing, what with their extra spells and boosts to Strength and Intelligence, but even if the Dragonborn's charisma is going to waste a bit, I think it's a good choice (and a bit of CHA can make the roleplay more fun.)
While you can play a Dex-based EK, my fantasy is much more the arcane juggernaut, so I'm going with a primarily STR-based build (also, Dragonborn.)
For Fighting Style I'm going simple with Defensive. I had initially wanted to play a Warforged EK (and might some day) where the armor bonus would not have worked with their integrated armor, but as a Dragonborn I'm going to be wearing that gear, and focusing on this will allow me to choose between sword-and-board (or rather hammer-and-board, as I always tend to like blunt weapons) or two-handed weapons depending on how I feel, while also reinforcing the tankiness of the character (with a shield, he's at 19 AC in just Chain mail, and up to 21 with plate.)
Of course where an EK really gets to customize is spell selection.
I'm focusing on damage with Cantrips.
Toll the Dead (no magic school restriction on cantrip selection) will be my main ranged damager - I've considered switching this for something with more utility, though. I might consider swapping it for Ray of Frost to slow targets or Frostbite to impose disadvantage on their attacks.
Booming Blade has EK written all over it. It includes within it a full weapon attack, and then punishes people for running away from me (not to mention opportunity attacks.) The best part is that it adds Thunder damage to my attacks at level 5 and the other cantrip improvement levels, so I can forgo my Extra Attack and still get in for somewhat comparable damage (no STR modifier to that Thunder damage, of course, so it'll be a judgment call.) Certainly at level 3 and 4 there's really no downside to using it instead of an ordinary attack. One benefit (and you'll notice this is a theme) is that the chance to hit on this is all based on Strength instead of Intelligence, so the fact that I only have a +2 to Intelligence won't hurt me as bad (granted by Strength is only +3, but hey, we're only level 3.) Plus, at level 7 EKs get to make a melee attack as a bonus action after casting a cantrip, so it's a pretty serious potential damage output.
At level 3 I get three spells known and two 1st level spell slots.
I'm going primarily defensive with these. Generally EKs can only get Evocation and Abjuration spells, but you get one from any school every couple levels.
That being said, the three I chose were from those schools anyway. I wonder if perhaps I should drop one and pick up an "extracurricular" spell just to not waste the chance, but the three I found all seem pretty cool.
Shield is the first pick, allowing me to add 5 AC to myself or entirely negate a Magic Missle spell as a reaction. Pretty standard defensive spell in case someone rolls a big hit against me.
Next is Absorb Elements, which is a little flashier and also gets me a bit of damage out of it as well. Also as a reaction, I gain resistance to either acid, fire, cold, lighting, or thunder damage, and then on my next turn, I get to add a d6 of that damage to my next melee attack (and an additional d6 for each spell level above 1.) This seems like a really good clutch spell when dealing with a big burst of magic damage, which is something a low-DEX Fighter will probably appreciate. This might actually be more useful than Shield for someone wearing such heavy armor.
Finally, there's the one I really feel completes the image: Earth Tremor.
Earth Tremor causes the earth to erupt in a 10-foot radius around me (I'm safe from it,) requiring a DEX save from anyone in that radius or take 1d6 bludgeoning damage (gaining 1d6 for each spell level above 1) and then causing the ground that was hit to become difficult terrain. It's not without its downsides - successful saves mean no damage and I've also got to deal with that terrain. But as a 1st level spell with the potential for AoE damage and as a decent amount of crowd control (making it harder for bad guys to get to my squishy party members) it seems like a good fit for the class.
I particularly like the image of the somatic component of the spell being the fighter slamming his hammer into the ground and a seismic wave bursting out from the impact.
Anyway, I think this is all doing a pretty good job of fulfilling the battlemage fantasy. One thing I'll have to get used to after playing a Warlock is the fact that spell slots don't come back until after a long rest. This means that I'll probably save those slots for big moments - using an Earth Tremor if I get a tight group of bad guys, or saving Absorb Elements in case we face a caster.
There are, of course, a couple fun things you get that aren't based on spell casting. Fighters of course have their class features like Second Wind and Action Surge (I don't think you can cast two spells in one turn, but you can do a full spell and your attack action, or a spell and a cantrip.) Additionally you get Weapon Bond, which allows you to, as a bonus action, summon one of your two bonded weapons (the bonding process takes an hour) as long as they're on the same plane of existence.
I feel like there's actually a ton of RP potential with this ability. Your EK could be remarkably careless about where they leave their weapon, perhaps even not bothering to sheath it and just dropping it after a fight, confident that they can summon it back to them at any time. Likewise, you could easily go into areas where you aren't permitted to carry weapons and still be confident you can summon one to defend yourself if trouble comes for you. I'd love to somehow see a scenario where some bad guy has taken your weapon and is going to attack you with it but you summon it right out of their hands and into yours.
Practically this is also a great option for thrown weapons. Often thrown weapons should be treated as expendable, but with this ability you can simply throw a weapon and immediately have it back in your hand.
For logistical reasons I don't think this game is happening until January at least, but I am very excited to play this character.
Thursday, December 6, 2018
What is Guildmaster's Guide to Ravnica Missing?
I read a brief but scathing review of the Guildmaster's Guide to Ravnica by Web DM's Jim Davis, which took me a little aback. I've really enjoyed the book, and his very low score for it contrasts greatly with what I think of as one of my favorite supplements they've made.
That being said, I do suppose that I can understand some of the criticisms.
I, of course, was a Magic player long before I was a D&D player. I played during the original Ravnica: City of Guilds block, and so Ravnica hits a big nostalgia button for me. If your childhood (or teenage/early 20s) years were defined by places like Eberron or Ravenloft, I suppose I do wonder what you would make of Ravnica.
Despite the rich look and feel to the various guilds, their existence is purely the expression of a Magic the Gathering mechanic - the guilds each represent one of the ten potential two-color pairs in a five-color magical system. The creative team nailed the intersection of each of these pairs so elegantly that the Guilds took on their own iconic status - as if Magic were now a game being played with ten colors instead of five.
The Guldmaster's Guide takes a special effort not to mention the colors of magic. To a large extent, I see the wisdom in that. The Boros Legion and Cult of Rakdos are both Red guilds, but you would be hard-pressed to see two more distinct guilds. Would introducing the concept of color - either as a purely aesthetic thing or perhaps an alternative to alignment (as I've suggested in the past) have helped people get more into the setting, or would it have been a distraction?
The book spends most of its pages discussing the various guilds. Each greater chapter is generally divided into sub-chapters for each guild - one talks membership, rank, and background benefits. One is a series of maps with suggestions for adventure and campaign plots revolving around each guild. The Bestiary and NPC list are also somewhat divided between guilds.
Clearly the Guilds are the defining feature of Ravnica as a setting. But the review does point out a few things that might be better clarified.
One is technology - the presence of the Izzet League suggests that Ravnica is in a bit of anachronism stew when it comes to technology levels. You still have people fighting with swords and axes, but there are also elevators, flamethrowers, espresso machines, and artificial lighting.
Another is the day-to-day life of the average citizen - half of Ravnica is guildless, but there's not a ton about what it's like to live a guildless existence in the city.
One thing I would agree to be fairly notable in its absence is history. The guide tells you a lot about how things are now, but there are some massive time-gaps. The "present day," which takes place in the era between the Return to Ravnica block and the current Guilds of Ravnica block, is one in which Jace Beleren is the Living Guildpact, but we don't see a ton about the events of the Decamillenial (the plot of the first block) nor the vast 10,000 year history when the Guildpact was doing its job.
We don't get much about the pre-Pact Ravnica either. Just as in the card game, we know almost nothing about the Nephilim.
Now, I'm a big homebrewer when it comes to lore. My campaign has been set within my own original setting and I generally think of that as the way to do D&D (Critical Role, for example, is all in Matt Mercer's homebrew setting of Exandria - though now that there's a Tal'dorei campaign guide published does it still count as homebrew?) So in my case, I don't mind the missing history as I figure it's an invitation to fill in the details that you want to.
One thing I think the book pushes is a kind of episodic storytelling structure. Gaining renown seems to work best using discrete missions with a "renown point" as a big reward, and might also encourage you to rotate plots between the different guilds your party belongs to. Fitting this system into a larger, serialized campaign story is going to require the DM to be a little clever about it - how big of a step along the way counts as a mission, for example.
Again, I don't know quite how a total Ravnica neophyte would react to the book. I've shown it to some of my D&D group and they find it interesting to be sure, but I don't know how ready they are to run a campaign set there.
Right now my D&D group is on a bit of a hiatus, and I don't want to totally drop our long-running campaign to just do Ravnica, but I'm hoping for a chance to a short-term campaign as a little side-story at some point, probably after the next major adventure (which could take up to a year to play through...)
There will definitely be some things I'm going to steal from the book, though. In my setting there's a faction very similar to House Dimir that will likely have two NPCs using Lazav's stats and a group probably using the Obzedat Ghost stats. Also, with a major industrial revolution going on in my world, there's a lot of potential for Izzet elements.
But I do think that, given that the book couldn't be twice as long, we got the most important parts in order to run a campaign set in Ravnica. I don't know if we'll get more supplements to help flesh it out later on or if they're really thinking of it as a one-off crossover.
That being said, I do suppose that I can understand some of the criticisms.
I, of course, was a Magic player long before I was a D&D player. I played during the original Ravnica: City of Guilds block, and so Ravnica hits a big nostalgia button for me. If your childhood (or teenage/early 20s) years were defined by places like Eberron or Ravenloft, I suppose I do wonder what you would make of Ravnica.
Despite the rich look and feel to the various guilds, their existence is purely the expression of a Magic the Gathering mechanic - the guilds each represent one of the ten potential two-color pairs in a five-color magical system. The creative team nailed the intersection of each of these pairs so elegantly that the Guilds took on their own iconic status - as if Magic were now a game being played with ten colors instead of five.
The Guldmaster's Guide takes a special effort not to mention the colors of magic. To a large extent, I see the wisdom in that. The Boros Legion and Cult of Rakdos are both Red guilds, but you would be hard-pressed to see two more distinct guilds. Would introducing the concept of color - either as a purely aesthetic thing or perhaps an alternative to alignment (as I've suggested in the past) have helped people get more into the setting, or would it have been a distraction?
The book spends most of its pages discussing the various guilds. Each greater chapter is generally divided into sub-chapters for each guild - one talks membership, rank, and background benefits. One is a series of maps with suggestions for adventure and campaign plots revolving around each guild. The Bestiary and NPC list are also somewhat divided between guilds.
Clearly the Guilds are the defining feature of Ravnica as a setting. But the review does point out a few things that might be better clarified.
One is technology - the presence of the Izzet League suggests that Ravnica is in a bit of anachronism stew when it comes to technology levels. You still have people fighting with swords and axes, but there are also elevators, flamethrowers, espresso machines, and artificial lighting.
Another is the day-to-day life of the average citizen - half of Ravnica is guildless, but there's not a ton about what it's like to live a guildless existence in the city.
One thing I would agree to be fairly notable in its absence is history. The guide tells you a lot about how things are now, but there are some massive time-gaps. The "present day," which takes place in the era between the Return to Ravnica block and the current Guilds of Ravnica block, is one in which Jace Beleren is the Living Guildpact, but we don't see a ton about the events of the Decamillenial (the plot of the first block) nor the vast 10,000 year history when the Guildpact was doing its job.
We don't get much about the pre-Pact Ravnica either. Just as in the card game, we know almost nothing about the Nephilim.
Now, I'm a big homebrewer when it comes to lore. My campaign has been set within my own original setting and I generally think of that as the way to do D&D (Critical Role, for example, is all in Matt Mercer's homebrew setting of Exandria - though now that there's a Tal'dorei campaign guide published does it still count as homebrew?) So in my case, I don't mind the missing history as I figure it's an invitation to fill in the details that you want to.
One thing I think the book pushes is a kind of episodic storytelling structure. Gaining renown seems to work best using discrete missions with a "renown point" as a big reward, and might also encourage you to rotate plots between the different guilds your party belongs to. Fitting this system into a larger, serialized campaign story is going to require the DM to be a little clever about it - how big of a step along the way counts as a mission, for example.
Again, I don't know quite how a total Ravnica neophyte would react to the book. I've shown it to some of my D&D group and they find it interesting to be sure, but I don't know how ready they are to run a campaign set there.
Right now my D&D group is on a bit of a hiatus, and I don't want to totally drop our long-running campaign to just do Ravnica, but I'm hoping for a chance to a short-term campaign as a little side-story at some point, probably after the next major adventure (which could take up to a year to play through...)
There will definitely be some things I'm going to steal from the book, though. In my setting there's a faction very similar to House Dimir that will likely have two NPCs using Lazav's stats and a group probably using the Obzedat Ghost stats. Also, with a major industrial revolution going on in my world, there's a lot of potential for Izzet elements.
But I do think that, given that the book couldn't be twice as long, we got the most important parts in order to run a campaign set in Ravnica. I don't know if we'll get more supplements to help flesh it out later on or if they're really thinking of it as a one-off crossover.
Tuesday, December 4, 2018
Innistrad, Ravnica, and D&D
Ravnica is Magic's most popular plane, and so it makes perfect sense that if they wanted to do a D&D/MtG crossover, they'd set it there.
I have heard grumblings about the fact that it got a full print book while Eberron, an established and original-to-D&D setting got a mere PDF. Magic is a more popular and lucrative game than D&D for Wizards of the Coast, and there was a sense that this felt like a sell-out move to try to drag Magic players into D&D.
But as someone who played Magic first, I've got to say that Ravnica is so rich with potential, and Magic as a game is not nearly as effective a means of storytelling than D&D is, so I've been overjoyed at the prospect of playing a campaign in that world (most likely would DM, but if I play a game set there I'm thinking a Dimir Half Elf Shadow Sorcerer embedded in the Izzet League so I get their cool toys - my backstory shoehorns in Lim-Dûl from Ice Age because I am supes Old School.)
Anyway, I sadly missed both Innistrad and Shadows Over Innistrad blocks (at some point I need to seriously think about putting Boot Camp together or some PC emulator so I can either get my MTGO account back online or try out Arena,) but I followed them (at least the former) when they were coming out and I've got to say I really love the world.
I doubt we're going to see any other major MTG/D&D crossovers - I'd be happy to get a Ravnica-set adventure, but I think people are going to revolt if we don't get some D&D-original stuff soon - but I've been thinking that if I were going to do another Magic-set campaign, Innistrad would be a good option.
Granted, Ravenloft tends to handle the Gothic Horror aspects of D&D, but Ravenloft isn't really a functional world as much as it is a kind of nightmare realm within the (or maybe connected to?) the Shadowfell. Innistrad, terror-plane that it is, is still kind of a functional world with a full history and potential for change.
If you're not familiar, Innistrad is a world in which humanity is at the bottom of the food chain. There aren't really any other standard fantasy races - no elves, dwarves, or goblins. The only non-human aid that the humans have are angels.
The irony is that the primary angel, Avacyn, who is the object of worship amongst humanity, was actually created by a vampire planeswalker named Sorin Markov. Markov worried that the world would collapse if humanity were killed off by the many monstrous threats that plagued Innistrad, and created Avacyn to be their champion.
But prior to the first Innistrad block, Avacyn was forced to seal herself away in order to banish Innistrad's demons to the Helvault, made from a shard of the world's moon.
In Magic terms, there were basically five two-color tribes using allied colors. White and Green were humans, Green and Red were Werewolves, Red and Black were Vampires, Black and Blue were "Skabs," in other words Frankenstein-style zombies, and Blue and White were Spirits.
The idea was basically that each of the non-human tribes preyed on the humans (though some spirits were benevolent.)
Now, there is a Plane Shift supplement for Innistrad. And it's a very good place to start if you want to run a game there. The supplement actually gives you instructions for how to transform the Curse of Strahd adventure book into one set in Innistrad, which is quite awesome. There are also notes on using the plot of the second Innistrad block, Shadows over Innistrad/Eldritch Moon, which pulled a Bloodborne (and came out around the same time) by starting with Gothic Horror and then going 100% Lovecraft.
But if we're talking vanilla Innistrad here, I do think there's an interesting option to explore:
The supplement makes the assumption that the players are all humans. But what if they're the monsters?
Certainly some tribes would be easier to convert to playable races than others. I think Werewolves and Vampires could be made essentially playable races without too much trouble - indeed both Zendikar and Ixalan Plane Shift articles have stats for Vampires (though I think the Ixalan is more broadly applicable - and one I'd include in my Ravnica game.) Spirits and Skabs might be a little tougher, but not unthinkable (human necromancers controlling Skabs could also work for that tribe.)
You'd also have to figure out what exactly you're trying to do in the campaign. Is it just an attempt to kill humans? You could run it as an evil campaign. It might also be interesting if you're trying to follow Sorin Markov's example and keep the balance. Indeed, if you did want to bring Emrakul's Lovecraftian corruption to the world, it'd be a nice time for the monsters of Innistrad to stand up and defend their world.
Ravenloft is a setting that is built very well for shorter campaigns, so I'd use the persistence and breadth of Innistrad as an excuse to delve deeper and have a longer-developing plot.
That being said, you could just as easily have a very quick adventure in which you're just in the middle of Thraben when a zombie horde attacks, and you need to get out of town or find shelter until the dawn.
I have heard grumblings about the fact that it got a full print book while Eberron, an established and original-to-D&D setting got a mere PDF. Magic is a more popular and lucrative game than D&D for Wizards of the Coast, and there was a sense that this felt like a sell-out move to try to drag Magic players into D&D.
But as someone who played Magic first, I've got to say that Ravnica is so rich with potential, and Magic as a game is not nearly as effective a means of storytelling than D&D is, so I've been overjoyed at the prospect of playing a campaign in that world (most likely would DM, but if I play a game set there I'm thinking a Dimir Half Elf Shadow Sorcerer embedded in the Izzet League so I get their cool toys - my backstory shoehorns in Lim-Dûl from Ice Age because I am supes Old School.)
Anyway, I sadly missed both Innistrad and Shadows Over Innistrad blocks (at some point I need to seriously think about putting Boot Camp together or some PC emulator so I can either get my MTGO account back online or try out Arena,) but I followed them (at least the former) when they were coming out and I've got to say I really love the world.
I doubt we're going to see any other major MTG/D&D crossovers - I'd be happy to get a Ravnica-set adventure, but I think people are going to revolt if we don't get some D&D-original stuff soon - but I've been thinking that if I were going to do another Magic-set campaign, Innistrad would be a good option.
Granted, Ravenloft tends to handle the Gothic Horror aspects of D&D, but Ravenloft isn't really a functional world as much as it is a kind of nightmare realm within the (or maybe connected to?) the Shadowfell. Innistrad, terror-plane that it is, is still kind of a functional world with a full history and potential for change.
If you're not familiar, Innistrad is a world in which humanity is at the bottom of the food chain. There aren't really any other standard fantasy races - no elves, dwarves, or goblins. The only non-human aid that the humans have are angels.
The irony is that the primary angel, Avacyn, who is the object of worship amongst humanity, was actually created by a vampire planeswalker named Sorin Markov. Markov worried that the world would collapse if humanity were killed off by the many monstrous threats that plagued Innistrad, and created Avacyn to be their champion.
But prior to the first Innistrad block, Avacyn was forced to seal herself away in order to banish Innistrad's demons to the Helvault, made from a shard of the world's moon.
In Magic terms, there were basically five two-color tribes using allied colors. White and Green were humans, Green and Red were Werewolves, Red and Black were Vampires, Black and Blue were "Skabs," in other words Frankenstein-style zombies, and Blue and White were Spirits.
The idea was basically that each of the non-human tribes preyed on the humans (though some spirits were benevolent.)
Now, there is a Plane Shift supplement for Innistrad. And it's a very good place to start if you want to run a game there. The supplement actually gives you instructions for how to transform the Curse of Strahd adventure book into one set in Innistrad, which is quite awesome. There are also notes on using the plot of the second Innistrad block, Shadows over Innistrad/Eldritch Moon, which pulled a Bloodborne (and came out around the same time) by starting with Gothic Horror and then going 100% Lovecraft.
But if we're talking vanilla Innistrad here, I do think there's an interesting option to explore:
The supplement makes the assumption that the players are all humans. But what if they're the monsters?
Certainly some tribes would be easier to convert to playable races than others. I think Werewolves and Vampires could be made essentially playable races without too much trouble - indeed both Zendikar and Ixalan Plane Shift articles have stats for Vampires (though I think the Ixalan is more broadly applicable - and one I'd include in my Ravnica game.) Spirits and Skabs might be a little tougher, but not unthinkable (human necromancers controlling Skabs could also work for that tribe.)
You'd also have to figure out what exactly you're trying to do in the campaign. Is it just an attempt to kill humans? You could run it as an evil campaign. It might also be interesting if you're trying to follow Sorin Markov's example and keep the balance. Indeed, if you did want to bring Emrakul's Lovecraftian corruption to the world, it'd be a nice time for the monsters of Innistrad to stand up and defend their world.
Ravenloft is a setting that is built very well for shorter campaigns, so I'd use the persistence and breadth of Innistrad as an excuse to delve deeper and have a longer-developing plot.
That being said, you could just as easily have a very quick adventure in which you're just in the middle of Thraben when a zombie horde attacks, and you need to get out of town or find shelter until the dawn.
Monday, December 3, 2018
The Mag'har and the Light
Well, it took me a lot longer than the Dark Irons, but I finally got the Mag'har Orcs unlocked and created a Blackrock-looking Monk.
I'll confess that I've never been terribly into the Orcs, and the Mag'har were thus maybe my least anticipated allied race. That being said, their inclusion has been a long time coming - I'd say that Dark Irons, Mag'har, and High Elves have all been requested for ages, and hey, two out of three ain't bad! (For the record, I personally find the Void Elves a lot more interesting than High Elves would have been, but I do understand how some people really wish they'd gotten High Elves for the Alliance instead.)
Still, what the Mag'har bring with them in addition to cool new looks for Orcs is an intriguing epilogue to Warlords of Draenor that raises some interesting questions.
After securing the ability to return to Draenor B, we find that its timeline has caught up with ours - the Mag'har there only vaguely recall us as having been there decades ago, when we helped expel the Legion from the world.
But the Orcs we find are paranoid about the Draenei and the "Lightbound."
The timeline appears as follows: the Orcs and Draenei united against the Legion and drove them out, and there was peace and friendship between the two peoples. But the Naaru seemed to want the Draenei to use this time to convert the Orcs to worship of the Light. Notably, there's mention of a "Lightmother" who comes to Yrel and charges her with this task - someone I suspect is actually Xe'ra.
Yrel, now High Exarch, pushes the Orcs to convert, and wins a fair number of them, including Grommash's son.
The Draenei are so focused on converting the Orcs that those who don't become their enemies. So we actually find the Mag'har in the midst of a religious war - one that the Draenei are definitely winning.
It's pretty tragic to see Yrel become a villain, though it's clear she thinks she is doing what is right.
What's particularly interesting is that it appears that Draenor is dying - there seems to be a drought that is heating and drying the planet. The Draenei believe this to be due to the Orcs' practices, while the Mag'har believe it is essentially caused by an excess of the Light.
While Xe'ra's actions toward Illidan gave us a real moment of doubt about the Light, we've never seen in portrayed so unambiguously corruptive as in this case. But on the other hand, we're only seeing it from the Mag'har perspective.
I see this conflict as one between Lawful Good and Chaotic Good. But it appears that the Orcs of Draenor B are ultimately going to lose.
What happens to that world? Does the Light kill it? What of Yrel and Grommash's Lightbound son?
We're ultimately left with some real mysteries. It remains to be seen what role the Mag'har will play in the Horde's destiny.
One thing of note is that the leader of the Mag'har, Overlord Geya'rah, is almost certainly Thrall's alt-Draenor doppelganger (guess an X-chromosome got there instead of a Y.) She has his blue eyes and, you know, is the daughter of Durotan and Draka. Does that make her his sister, in a way? I'd be curious to see these two interact.
I'll confess that I've never been terribly into the Orcs, and the Mag'har were thus maybe my least anticipated allied race. That being said, their inclusion has been a long time coming - I'd say that Dark Irons, Mag'har, and High Elves have all been requested for ages, and hey, two out of three ain't bad! (For the record, I personally find the Void Elves a lot more interesting than High Elves would have been, but I do understand how some people really wish they'd gotten High Elves for the Alliance instead.)
Still, what the Mag'har bring with them in addition to cool new looks for Orcs is an intriguing epilogue to Warlords of Draenor that raises some interesting questions.
After securing the ability to return to Draenor B, we find that its timeline has caught up with ours - the Mag'har there only vaguely recall us as having been there decades ago, when we helped expel the Legion from the world.
But the Orcs we find are paranoid about the Draenei and the "Lightbound."
The timeline appears as follows: the Orcs and Draenei united against the Legion and drove them out, and there was peace and friendship between the two peoples. But the Naaru seemed to want the Draenei to use this time to convert the Orcs to worship of the Light. Notably, there's mention of a "Lightmother" who comes to Yrel and charges her with this task - someone I suspect is actually Xe'ra.
Yrel, now High Exarch, pushes the Orcs to convert, and wins a fair number of them, including Grommash's son.
The Draenei are so focused on converting the Orcs that those who don't become their enemies. So we actually find the Mag'har in the midst of a religious war - one that the Draenei are definitely winning.
It's pretty tragic to see Yrel become a villain, though it's clear she thinks she is doing what is right.
What's particularly interesting is that it appears that Draenor is dying - there seems to be a drought that is heating and drying the planet. The Draenei believe this to be due to the Orcs' practices, while the Mag'har believe it is essentially caused by an excess of the Light.
While Xe'ra's actions toward Illidan gave us a real moment of doubt about the Light, we've never seen in portrayed so unambiguously corruptive as in this case. But on the other hand, we're only seeing it from the Mag'har perspective.
I see this conflict as one between Lawful Good and Chaotic Good. But it appears that the Orcs of Draenor B are ultimately going to lose.
What happens to that world? Does the Light kill it? What of Yrel and Grommash's Lightbound son?
We're ultimately left with some real mysteries. It remains to be seen what role the Mag'har will play in the Horde's destiny.
One thing of note is that the leader of the Mag'har, Overlord Geya'rah, is almost certainly Thrall's alt-Draenor doppelganger (guess an X-chromosome got there instead of a Y.) She has his blue eyes and, you know, is the daughter of Durotan and Draka. Does that make her his sister, in a way? I'd be curious to see these two interact.
Saturday, December 1, 2018
The Curious Case of Humanity in Magic the Gathering
Quick: name the most common fantasy race in the genre.
Did you say Elves? Dwarves? Orcs? Goblins?
Wrong. It's the one so obvious that you don't even think about it: Humans.
Yes, given that most authors are humans, it makes sense that if we want a relatable character, we tend to imagine a human first. Indeed, it's even somewhat less common to tell fantasy stories from the perspective of non-human characters.
One could argue that the quintessential, genre-defining fantasy work, Lord of the Rings, does this, and I think that's a valid argument. But in Tolkien's mythos, the Hobbits who serve as protagonists to his grand tales (I'd argue Sam is closer to the real protagonist of LOTR than Frodo, but it applies in either case) are actually just an off-shoot of humanity - sharing common ancestors while Elves and Dwarves were created separately.
But Humans are everywhere. In RPGs and other fantasy games, humans usually don't have a lot of big strengths or weaknesses - their diversity and adaptability tend to be emphasized in more recent works (Mass Effect, while Sci-Fi, fits these tropes quite well.)
In Magic the Gathering, humans are probably the most common creature type. But it was not always this way.
A lot of things changed when I was in my senior year of High School. This was when Magic ditched their old card frames to use the new, sleeker ones that have since become just what Magic cards look like. The change came with Eighth Edition, which came out on Magic's tenth anniversary. If you're a more recent player, you probably know the old frames as these weird relics of an earlier era, but I'll tell you that for those of us who had been playing Magic those past ten (or nine in my case) years, this was mind-blowingly weird. The sleek contours and smooth text boxes felt weirdly sci-fi compared to the old stuff we had - like how Black cards used to have what looked like aged parchment for text boxes or Green had what looked like a plank of wood.
But the other strange thing was that all of a sudden, there were humans.
Now, humans have been around since Magic began, obviously, but they were always defined by their "class" creature type. Soldiers, Clerics, Knights, Wizards, Druids, Shamans, and the like were all just assumed to be human unless they were combined with a race like Elf. If you had any cards that let you determine creature types, you'd pick one of those rather than human.
But the designers felt, in retrospect, that that was weird. Humans are just as much a unified species as elves or goblins, so why not allow that?
In the next expansion block, Mirrodin, they leaned into this - even on a plane where everyone was partially metal, and thus much less conventionally human (or goblin, or elf.) Each color had a type of human - the Auriok for White, Sylvok for Green, Vulshok for Red, Moriok for Black, and Neurok for Blue.
It took them ten years, but they added humans to the game. They then had to start issuing errata on ten years' worth of cards to give them new creature types. This would happen again in the very next block when Kamigawa turned "Legendary" into a supertype (which had sort of already existed thanks to Legendary Lands, introduced in Legends along with Legendary creatures) as well as adding the keyword Defender to divorce creature type from any implicit rules (previously, Walls had been the only creatures with an implied Defender keyword. We got our first sentient, humanoid defenders in Kamigawa.)
What's interesting about this change is that it actually allowed them to do some interesting new things, flavor-wise.
Lorwyn and Shadowmoor, an unconventional four-set block (or twinned two-set block if you prefer) were twin worlds that, famously, did not have any humans in them.
Later, Innistrad, one of Magic's most popular settings and sets (and one I wish I had been playing during - I'd love to play a Werewolf deck) would go the opposite direction - a plane without other humanoid races, per se, but one in which humans were constantly threatened on all sides by Vampires, Werewolves, Spirits, and Zombies.
It's always an interesting question to ask in fantasy - one of the most popular tropes of the genre is the idea of other races that are not human, yet are similar enough to be relatable. But it is funny to me that when throwing together all of these fantastical beings, it's easy to forget that we're putting ourselves into the mix.
Did you say Elves? Dwarves? Orcs? Goblins?
Wrong. It's the one so obvious that you don't even think about it: Humans.
Yes, given that most authors are humans, it makes sense that if we want a relatable character, we tend to imagine a human first. Indeed, it's even somewhat less common to tell fantasy stories from the perspective of non-human characters.
One could argue that the quintessential, genre-defining fantasy work, Lord of the Rings, does this, and I think that's a valid argument. But in Tolkien's mythos, the Hobbits who serve as protagonists to his grand tales (I'd argue Sam is closer to the real protagonist of LOTR than Frodo, but it applies in either case) are actually just an off-shoot of humanity - sharing common ancestors while Elves and Dwarves were created separately.
But Humans are everywhere. In RPGs and other fantasy games, humans usually don't have a lot of big strengths or weaknesses - their diversity and adaptability tend to be emphasized in more recent works (Mass Effect, while Sci-Fi, fits these tropes quite well.)
In Magic the Gathering, humans are probably the most common creature type. But it was not always this way.
A lot of things changed when I was in my senior year of High School. This was when Magic ditched their old card frames to use the new, sleeker ones that have since become just what Magic cards look like. The change came with Eighth Edition, which came out on Magic's tenth anniversary. If you're a more recent player, you probably know the old frames as these weird relics of an earlier era, but I'll tell you that for those of us who had been playing Magic those past ten (or nine in my case) years, this was mind-blowingly weird. The sleek contours and smooth text boxes felt weirdly sci-fi compared to the old stuff we had - like how Black cards used to have what looked like aged parchment for text boxes or Green had what looked like a plank of wood.
But the other strange thing was that all of a sudden, there were humans.
Now, humans have been around since Magic began, obviously, but they were always defined by their "class" creature type. Soldiers, Clerics, Knights, Wizards, Druids, Shamans, and the like were all just assumed to be human unless they were combined with a race like Elf. If you had any cards that let you determine creature types, you'd pick one of those rather than human.
But the designers felt, in retrospect, that that was weird. Humans are just as much a unified species as elves or goblins, so why not allow that?
In the next expansion block, Mirrodin, they leaned into this - even on a plane where everyone was partially metal, and thus much less conventionally human (or goblin, or elf.) Each color had a type of human - the Auriok for White, Sylvok for Green, Vulshok for Red, Moriok for Black, and Neurok for Blue.
It took them ten years, but they added humans to the game. They then had to start issuing errata on ten years' worth of cards to give them new creature types. This would happen again in the very next block when Kamigawa turned "Legendary" into a supertype (which had sort of already existed thanks to Legendary Lands, introduced in Legends along with Legendary creatures) as well as adding the keyword Defender to divorce creature type from any implicit rules (previously, Walls had been the only creatures with an implied Defender keyword. We got our first sentient, humanoid defenders in Kamigawa.)
What's interesting about this change is that it actually allowed them to do some interesting new things, flavor-wise.
Lorwyn and Shadowmoor, an unconventional four-set block (or twinned two-set block if you prefer) were twin worlds that, famously, did not have any humans in them.
Later, Innistrad, one of Magic's most popular settings and sets (and one I wish I had been playing during - I'd love to play a Werewolf deck) would go the opposite direction - a plane without other humanoid races, per se, but one in which humans were constantly threatened on all sides by Vampires, Werewolves, Spirits, and Zombies.
It's always an interesting question to ask in fantasy - one of the most popular tropes of the genre is the idea of other races that are not human, yet are similar enough to be relatable. But it is funny to me that when throwing together all of these fantastical beings, it's easy to forget that we're putting ourselves into the mix.
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