D&D Supposedly Planning a Big Press Release Tuesday the 22nd

 Rumor has it (I heard from Nerd Immersion, which seems to always get this moments after it hits the internet) that Wizards of the Coast is planning to make some announcements next week. With Call of the Netherdeep out, every previously-announced D&D book has already been released (other than the stand-alone Monsters of the Multiverse, though my roommate just got the rules expansion box set, so I think I'm good on that one).

I think there are two very obvious releases that I expect will be announced or at least alluded to: namely Spelljammer and Dragonlance.

The D&D community has been begging for Spelljammer for years - maybe somewhat cheekily, given how zany and out-there the setting is. But teases of the Hydro74 art for the cover of an unannounced book with Boo, the Miniature Giant Space Hamster, as well as the Travelers of the Multiverse Unearthed Arcana post, have made the science-fantasy setting seem far more likely than before. Spelljammer hasn't been a thing since the early 90s, when fans of the game seemed turned off by its silly tone and mixing of genres. But I think that modern audiences are both far more comfortable with a silly tone and also far more receptive to bending the fantasy genre, meaning the setting is due for a redemption.

Van Richten's Guide to Ravenloft made a lot of changes to the Ravenloft setting - most notably dispelling the notion of any coherent, continent-like structure called The Core that gave the Domains of Dread literal physical borders with one another, and instead made each a kind of bubble-reality afloat within the Mists (a change I am about 200% in favor of - I hate the idea of the Core profoundly, and love the new concept). Thus, while I know a little about the way Spelljammer worked in the late 80s and early 90s, I think it's possible we'll see some tweaks to the mechanics and the tone.

The other book is, if anything, even more certain, given WotC's not remotely coy "Heroes of Krynn" UA post. Some longstanding legal disputes over intellectual property related to the Dragonlance setting were recently settled between WotC and the Hickmans (the creators of the setting - also actually the creators of Strahd and by extension Ravenloft). This first manifested with the design of Fizban's Treasury of Dragons - Fizban is a human avatar of the good-aligned god Paladine, which has now been explicitly confirmed to be another name for Bahamut. But Paladine is specifically the Dragonlance version of Bahamut.

I don't really know much about Dragonlance as a setting beyond the fact that there are dragons and there are things called Dragonlances that are very useful for fighting said dragons (and also useful for fighting while mounted on dragons). It was, however, I think, a very popular setting, perhaps even the most popular setting before the Forgotten Realms became D&D's kind of default setting. My sense is that it's a bit more of an epic fantasy setting with great armies and dark lords and such - in contrast with the Forgotten Realms' sort of "adventurers are a dime a dozen" approach (though I could be totally wrong).

Now, the next question is if we're due for any other announcements.

Believe it or not, but Tasha's Cauldron of Everything is now a year and a half old - meaning that a book announced next week might not come out until it'd been two years. If you look at the big setting-agnostic rules expansion and monster books, Volo's came out in 2016 (two years after 5E's launch,) Xanathar's came out in 2017, Mordenkainen's Tome of Foes came out in 2018, Tasha's came out in 2020, and then Fizban's came out in 2021. So, while they didn't have one in 2015 or 2019, for the most part we've gotten a big rules-expansion book every year, alternating between monsters and general rules (Fizban's is admittedly a bit more mixed - it has monsters and races like a typical monster book but also subclasses and magic items like an "of Everything" book.)

It might not be that crazy, then, to see another "of Everything"-style book announced for release either this year or early 2023. That is, of course, getting close to 2024, when WotC will be coming out with the backwards-compatible new versions of the core rulebooks, but if they are truly backwards compatible, it might not be that bad to throw in some new options and features.

I wouldn't be terribly shocked to see a new "of Everything" book include the Undead Patron, College of Spirits, and even maybe the Way of the Ascendant Dragon and the Drakewarden, as we saw Tasha's consolidate many setting-specific subclasses into setting-agnostic rules. (The Undead Patron feels like a slam dunk). The latter two of these, of course, are not setting-specific, but my sense is that if you're a player-only enthusiast of D&D, you might feel more comfortable picking up a book with tons of new subclasses rather than a monster book with just two.

Anyway, I'm very excited to see what's in store.

It's a Reach, But... Elden Ring and the Story of America

 So, pretty early in Elden Ring, maybe even before it came out, I noticed something: Doesn't "Marika" sound like "America?"

The Souls games are generally thought to be inspired by or based on some fairly heady concepts. Dark Souls, for example, could be read as an allegory for how entropy could lead to the heat death of the universe.

Essentially, physicists think that, after many, many billions of years (like, orders of magnitude more than there have been since the Big Bang,) all energy will ultimately become heat, which is the most disordered form of energy, and that every particle of matter will sort of shake itself apart into a big, kind of undifferentiated mass of nothing in particular. This would simply be a consequence of the fact that there are differences in energy between different parts of the universe - energy is the potential to cause change, essentially, and once all the change has been done, things would settle into a kind of warm stasis.

You can see, then, how the Flame of Disparity, which birthed the Age of Fire, is sort of like the Big Bang, and that the eventual Age of Darkness would be like the Heat Death of the Universe. Gwyn's desire to forestall that eventuality makes sense - he's trying to preserve the world as he knows and loves it (which does also happen to have him at the top,) but Dark Souls III really seems to imply that any attempt to control the growth of entropy is doomed to diminishing returns. Indeed, it's a thing in physics that in order to reduce the entropy of a region, you need to create more entropy than you are reducing elsewhere. The Lords of Cinder were trying to maintain order, but their acts only led to greater chaos.

Now, what about Elden Ring?

As a disclaimer, this is all highly speculative. It's a reach that you might find is based on flimsy logic. But I wanted to get the thematic discussion started, and you have to start somewhere.

First off, we don't really know the extent to which George R. R. Martin was involved in coming up with the world and its stories. I get the impression that it was kind of a consulting gig that was also a boon to the game's marketing, so they played it up. I think he probably sketched out the basics of the world, likely named characters, and perhaps talked about themes and motifs to explore. The presences of so many severed limbs sure seems to be a signature of good old George (also, people have pointed out that there are a lot of G., R., and M. names in the game).

The Souls games have, with the exception of Sekiro, been a kind of Japanese interpretation of Western fantasy. Series creator Hidetaka Miyazaki has said that when he was a kid, he used to read English-language fantasy novels without having a very firm grasp of English, and so he would sort of piece together his own version of the story, taking what clues he could find. As a westerner, I'm highly familiar with the sort of interpretation and appropriation of other culture's tropes and stories, so it's always fascinating to me to see the way other cultures reinterpret stories from my own culture - it gives me insight into how different our versions of other cultures' stories are from the originals. But the presence of Martin in the process here means that this is not entirely a Japanese creation - there's a collaboration between cultures to produce this.

Let's start with that observation about Marika. Marika is, in some ways, the Lord Gwyn of this cosmos. She's the top deity... sort of. She's said to be an embodiment of the Elden Ring, which is a kind of cosmic set of laws that govern the universe, and which was, itself, manifested by something called the Greater Will. The Greater Will may be a true deity, or perhaps more of a universal principle.

Marika is heard of far more than she is ever seen in the game. She's basically an idea made manifest - which is particularly true if she is the embodiment of the Elden Ring. If we are to take the metaphor seriously, Marika represents America as a concept - not precisely a land, not precisely a government, not precisely a people, not precisely a culture, but some kind of intersection of all those things.

And here's the craziest thing:

So, America, as a country, was founded in a different way than previous nations, and that has given us an odd sort of question of identity - we're not a "nation" in the traditional sense of being tied to a particular ethnicity or ancestry (though there have been people who always wanted it to be like that). One of the elements of America that could be said to define the country is, in fact, a written document: the Constitution. It's a code that outlines the structure of American government and the powers and limitations on those powers that define it.

Kind of like the Elden Ring.

See, like the US Constitution, the Elden Ring is a set of laws, though in this case one that takes the form of magical runes. How could Marika break the Elden Ring when she is its very embodiment? The same way that America, as a country, could potentially violate its own Constitution.

One of the somewhat hidden elements in Elden Ring is the vast underground areas - what I refer to as Elden Ring's Underdark (a D&D term for a kind of world beneath the surface in vast caverns with its own cultures and peoples). The people found underground, at least in the Siofra River section, seem to be portrayed as being more in tune with nature - they are said to avoid the use of metal, wielding weapons of bone or wood. They also appear to worship elk- or moose-like ancestor spirits. The Lands Between literally sit on top of their lands.

I wonder, thus, if they are in some way there to represent the Native Americans. I find myself feeling a little uncomfortable making this suggestion, especially as the peoples of Siofra River are depicted as beast-like, horned ogres (or kind of minotaurs?) But it does fit with this model of the story. I don't yet really know what the story is behind these people, but it's a connection that I'm going to keep looking out for.

Now, setting aside my America-themed notions for now, it's also clear to me that there's a combination of Greek and Norse mythology. The Erdtree seems naturally inspired by Yggdrasil, the World Tree of Norse myth, and depictions of Radagon as a warrior with red hair wielding a big hammer call to mind Thor.

Godfrey, the previous Elden Lord, is shown with a great big lion-spirit always at his back, which is a very clear connection to Herakles (Hercules, as the Romans would call him) from Greek myth.

Indeed, the areas in the Underdark, particularly Siofra River, have a very Classical Greek look to them, with white columns and a kind of Arcadian vibe to the hunting grounds (the starry expanse below ground actually calls to mind another Greek-inspired fantasy setting, namely Theros from Magic the Gathering - a game I believe Miyazaki is a fan of).

Marika spurns Godfrey and takes up Radagon as her second consort. Did the world move on from Greek myth to Norse?

There's a whole lot left to unpack here, and I don't know how extensive the American metaphor is through the game - if it's even intentional at all. But games, especially games like Elden Ring, are art, and art is always open to interpretation.

Elden Ring is So Vast

 After taking down Rykard, Lord of Blasphemy, I decided to tool around in various areas that I had kind of skipped past. Siofra River was the first "underdark" region I found, coming across the elevator in the Mistwood in southeastern Limgrave. It became immediately apparent that the foes there were a bit tough for me, so I left, and only just came back to do a pretty thorough clear. I realized, riding through, that there were braziers that could be lit in the lower cliff-side overlooking the starry expanse, and after running around for quite a while (and getting shot with star-arrows that still hurt even at level 97 or so) I got all 8 lit, and went to face down an ancestor-spirit boss that, well, I was a little overpowered for (I did manage to get killed once, but each Glintstone Pebble was taking off like a sixth of its health).

Then, doing some more exploration, I came back to a place I had seen in the Ranni quest chain, going to the "Siofra Aqueduct," which led to an actually somewhat-appropriately-leveled fight against two gargoyles. This, it turned out, gave me another coffin to hop in, but rather than falling down a waterfall, I was lifted up one, and found myself in the Deeproot Depths, which seems to be the "underdark" region below Leyndell and Altus Plateau. I fought a world-boss there, getting a spear I can't use and a suit of armor that I actually can (and was an upgrade over Blaidd's set).

I'm given to understand that there's a questchain that I need to do if I want to get everything out of Deeproot Depths, but it's nice to just have an area where the enemies aren't insanely tough, but are giving enough runes to actually make me feel like I'm making progress (my last level-up was like 57k, so enemies that drop less than a thousand runes feel hardly worth the effort).

I noted when I first came across basilisks in this game that they have a nearly-identical design to the ones in Dark Souls - kind of elongated frogs with big false eyes. I also noted that the gargoyle bosses you have to fight to get to Deeproot Depths seem to have a very similar design to the gargoyles in Dark Souls III.

Now, I doubt there are going to be any explicit connections between Dark Souls and Elden Ring - probably just some call-backs and references (The Lord of Blood apparently is trying to establish a Mohgwyn Dynasty, which did raise some alarms given a certain Gwyn from Dark Souls) but I do think it's interesting to see the patterns that repeat. In Dark Souls, trees were a big part of the imagery associated with the Age of Dragons, and naturally with the Erdtree visible from almost everywhere in Elden Ring, it's hard not to notice that.

If Dark Souls is a fantasy allegory for entropy and the heat-death of the universe, and if Bloodborne is an examination of procreation, I'm trying to figure out what the biggest themes of Elden Ring are. There are certainly motifs - lots of severed limbs, for example, which might be a George R. R. Martin contribution.

I also feel like there's some implication as to the origins of the gods. Actually, it's interesting: Elden Ring seems to effectively have a monotheistic mythos - Queen Marika is this enigma at the center of everything. I've seen some spoilers that complicate her role in the story and just what and who she really is.

I've also been on a quest chain that saw me helping cure a young woman named Millicent of Scarlet Rot. I also just secured a prosthetic arm for her that looks very familiar to a certain person's arm in the trailers for the game, and Millicent talks about how she's seeing Melania up at the Haligtree (I'm a little stuck on a boss that bars the way to the other half of the Haligtree Lift Medallion, though I have leveled up a few times since my last attempt) and I'm 100% convinced that she actually is Melania, as she looks just like her, only normal human NPC-sized.

I'm really in awe of the game's scope, but that also makes me feel more wary of playing through multiple times - I want to try out different fighting styles, but it's a big time investment (though apparently some speed runner has beat the game in under half an hour, which I just... but how?)

Oh, and I found an extra Margit the Fell fight out in the world outside Leyndell - which is odd, because in theory I've actually killed him (supposedly if you skip Stormveil Castle until after you've killed him for real, he doesn't show up at the start).

Rykard Slain!

 So, the boss of Volcano Manor is actually in a deep cavern that you only get to via a teleporter (and, very kindly, has a site of grace right outside the boss room). This is the "Storm Ruler" fight of the game, but in start contrast to Yhorm, the special weapon doesn't so much make the fight trivial as make it... possible.

I'm sure there will be some hardcore players who don't use the Serpent-Hunter, but I doubled down, upgrading my Mimic Tear to use its own version of the weapon. I was still getting one-shot until I got Radagon's Soreseal - while this increases the damage you take, it also increases your Vigor (and Endurance, and Strength, and Dexterity) and ultimately I found the fight more survivable (the endurance also helped me wear heavier armor).

Basically, you just need to dodge attacks, use R1 with the Serpent-Hunter (unlike the Storm Ruler, you don't need to use its weapon art to get the special boss-attack) and then if you stagger the boss, give it a nice R2. Dodging his attacks is quite tough, but as always, you'll just have to learn the rhythm over time.

Now, Mt. Gelmir is a little on the linear side - kind of a spiral path up the mountain - so I don't actually know how much I've truly skipped, but I might explore there a bit more. Basically, I want to beef up a bit more before returning to Mountaintop of the Giants.

I think there are far more optional bosses in this game than mandatory ones, but I'd like to do as much of a "full clear" as I can before I get to the end. Rykard isn't a mandatory boss, but he is a demigod with a Great Rune and a Remembrance.

Anyway, Rykard is also maybe the nastiest boss in terms of aesthetic I've come across (Godrick the Grafted of course is also pretty gross as well).

Volcano Manor is Just as Pleasant as the Name Suggests

 So, my impression of Leyndell, the Royal Capital, was that the "dungeon" itself was difficult, while the bosses were fairly easy by comparison (I'll reiterate that I am playing a ranged caster). I hadn't even realized, upon arriving at Altus Plateau, that you could immediately head on up to Mt. Gelmir, and, it seems, might even be intended to go there after Liurnia.

The dungeon, which I got to with relative ease (though it involved fighting two world bosses, neither of which I think are strictly mandatory, though the star-beast at the top of a spire of rock felt like it, is Volcano Manor. To be perfectly honest, the dungeon itself hasn't been all that hard - there are a few of those wheeled iron maiden enemies that are quite nasty, but for the most part they're not too bad (I also stumbled upon a Magma Wyrm boss, which I think might be the third I've fought - one of which was also in Mt. Gelmir).

The mid-boss of Volcano Manor (and it does seem that all of the legacy dungeons have a midway boss, though Stormveil Castle's is right at the start) is the Godskin Apostle, which is quick and has some dangerous moves (including inflating and rolling over you) but I believe I downed him in one shot.

The final boss, though, is nasty. What begins as the God-devouring Serpent then reveals itself as Rykard, Lord of Blasphemy in the second phase. Like the Storm King in Demon's Souls and Yhorm the Giant in Dark Souls III, you can find a special weapon here that has powerful effects when you attack the boss, but unlike those, the weapon can only stun-lock the boss if you pour many flasks-worth of FP into the special L2 attack - instead, you're better off using R1 for a forward jab and R2 or a sweeping slash, both of which create big waves of light that do pretty significant damage to the boss.

The problem, though, is that the boss has moves that, at least on my Sorcerer, can just flat-out one-shot me. Getting through phase 1 takes some patience and luck, but then Rykard shows up swinging a horrific sword that, yes, one-shots me.

Now, I have barely explored Mt. Gelmir, so I think I might exit the dungeon and see what mini-dungeons and other things I can find to maybe level up (and get my vigor a little higher - it's like 23 at this point).

A Recommendation for Elden Ring Progression

 So, after defeating the main boss of Leyndell, the Royal Capital, I followed the obvious route, heading to the Grand Lift of Rold and up into the Mountaintop of the Giants. And after feeling I'd really become a hardcore badass, I've hit a point where things are killing me real, real quick. I did get to Castle Sol and found the boss there, but I decided that maybe I should do some more exploring.

So, heading to the Altus Plateau, I decided to explore a bit and realized that there was a path through a big canyon that led to Mt. Gelmir.

As it turns out, the foes here are a bit more manageable. And I think that's more or less the rhythm of the game. When I first arrived in Altus Plateau, things were pretty tough, but I found that I was about the right level to clear out some stuff in Caelid, which included taking down Starscourge Radahn. My sense, then, is that even if the main quest puts you on a pretty direct line from Limgrave to Liurnia to Altus Plateau and then Mountaintop of the Giants, but it seems wise to take some detours to Caelid after Liurnia and then to Mt. Gelmir (I assume) after finishing Altus Plateau.

Now, this also includes some character-specific questlines. I did the full Ranni quest chain (and apparently skipped that of her lieutenants - Selivus, who is apparently a real creep, was just dead the second time I went to his tower). I also just did Sellen's quests, which... well, in typical Souls fashion, there's a big be careful what you wish for vibe.

Anyway, I think I'm going to try to get through the major parts of Mt. Gelmir next - I think I've found the Volcano Manor, which I believe is the legacy dungeon of that region. I also need to eventually return to Raya Lucaria as I'm almost certain I skipped parts of that dungeon.

It's a cool game, folks.

My New Homebrew Setting

 When I started playing D&D in 2015, I jumped into the deep end, starting off as a DM. It would actually be a couple years before I ever played, like, as a player character. Outside of the game, I'm a fantasy writer, so it was pretty natural to me that I'd come up with a homebrew setting, rather than using the Forgotten Realms or other established D&D worlds.

That first campaign was set on my homebrew world, and it's one that I have every intention of returning to in the future. Right now I'm in the middle of my epic Ravnica campaign, which is intended to take players to level 20 and even let them do stuff at 20! But Sarkon, that homebrew world, is meant to be my default.

But...

So, over the past few years I've become one of those masochistic madmen who actually enjoys FromSoft's punishing "Souls" games - you might notice that the last several posts on this blog are all about Elden Ring, their new open-world variation on the formula (which I think is a masterpiece).

Difficult in terms of gameplay, but also deeply obscure in terms of lore (and, maybe not so wonderfully, in game mechanics,) the worlds of FromSoft's action-RPG nightmares (literally in the case of Bloodborne) operate on a bizarre logic that invites you to question the morality of your goals. The first Dark Souls, for example, allowed you to either continue the Age of Fire by linking the flame, sacrificing yourself in place of the old patriarchal deity Lord Gwyn, or to embrace darkness and begin the Dark Age of Humanity. That latter one seems bad, right? But later games (Dark Souls III in particular) suggest that maybe artificially extending the Age of Fire has only led to greater suffering.

With Elden Ring, the developers have created a new world (with the aid of George R. R. Martin) that introduces new concepts. It setting, the Lands Between, is a realm filled with demigods and the home of the primary deity, Queen Marika. The eponymous Elden Ring has been shattered, and the very logic of existence seems to have become flawed.

The Lands Between, where Elden Ring is set, thus feel less like a physical world inhabited by regular people than it does a kind of metaphysical plane - the realm of gods (which, frankly, also applies to Dark Souls' Lordran and Lothric - and maybe Drangleic, though I never played the second one).

Thus, we return to D&D.

See, I'm fascinated by Planescape as a campaign setting for D&D. The "outer planes" in D&D are the realms of the gods, and in most campaigns, their influence is only really felt through the actions of divine spellcasters and perhaps some scheme hatched off there. Sometimes players will make a brief journey to the outer planes to acquire some important relic or such.

Planescape, though, imagines these places - the D&D equivalents of heaven and hell (but rather than two there are at least seventeen) - as places where people do live their lives, and where adventure can be undertaken.

But Planescape encourages a very different approach to adventures. In most settings, for example, fiends (devils, demons, etc.,) are basically kill-on-sight, but in realms where fiends and celestials meet, you're kind of a dick if you just attack someone only because they're evil. Planescape mostly centers around the city of Sigil - a nexus where outer-planar beings can meet and trade or socialize. Sigil, not that dissimilar to Ravnica, is dominated by several factions, which each represent very strongly-held philosophical positions taken to extremes.

Because the Outer Planes (which include Sigil and the Outlands, which is the True Neutral plane) are metaphysical places, philosophy and ideas can actually transform the land itself.

So, why did I bring up Elden Ring? Because I think the metaphysical approach to the world shares some ideas with Planescape, and thus I think it's a good inspiration for a general vibe and aesthetic.

Ok, enough preamble:

I've been working on a new campaign setting. It's connected to, but distinct from, Planescape. My reasoning is partially that I just like making my own thing, but also that I'd like to have some freedom to futz with the metaphysics of it without declaring Planescape's version "invalid" at my table.

Thus, we have Escadia: the Shattered Heaven.

Escadia is a realm that was once a promontory that jutted from Mount Celestia. It was the realm of a god who is now known only as The Sovereign That Was . Eons ago, Escadia was sundered from the mountain in an event known as the Severance, and now, it drifts in crumbled, broken pieces across the Astral Sea, now something of a demiplane within that catch-all realm. Not only was the realm thrown into chaos, but The Sovereign That Was has disappeared, and while everyone remembers that there was a god who ruled Escadia, no one can remember anything about them.

Now, Dark Souls, Bloodborne, Elden Ring, they're all characterized by a world that has totally broken, where the number of people you can trust not to immediately kill you is a distinct minority. Escadia is not quite like that, or at least it doesn't have to be. Playing more toward D&D's typical rhythms, there are towns and cities in Escadia where players can find shelter and get along all right.

But, I also reserve the right to run a campaign in which things are absolutely fucked.

There are three major factions within Escadia (at least for now,) and each has its own sub-factions and groups with their own agendas. The Arideem are celestials who believe that the most important goal for anyone in Escadia is to restore the realm to Mount Celestia. Among these, some believe that the return of the Sovereign That Was will accomplish this, or at least make it a lot easier. Some are pursuing other means. While the Arideem are mostly friendly, the fervor with which they pursue this goal might lead certain members to dangerous, mad methods.

One of the keys to the setting as a metaphysical one is that the Arideem, despite being inherently lawful good celestials, are no longer in the plane of pure lawful goodness, and as such, they are not infallibly lawful or good as they once were.

Next, we have the Sagrex, which is a less centralized affiliation of various philosophical factions, including many visitors from the Prime Material Plane. The Sagrex generally try to keep the Arideem running Escadia, but different lodges within the Sagrex have different ambitions for Escadia. In general, many of these lodge factions consider the return to Celestia as impossible or not worth it, and intend for Escadia to just become its own thing - or even to reconstruct it as a world of the Prime Material Plane.

Finally, we have the Dyam. These interplanar traders, run largely by genies, have little investment in Escadia's ultimate fate, but instead seek to extract valuable resources from the land and strike it rich on the metaphysical goods that can be found in a fragment of heaven. The Dyam have helped to bring creatures and beings from all over the multiverse, using their clout to maintain a semblance of order in the crumbling realm, which has allowed them to coexist with the Arideem.

Basically, I think you could do this as a more traditional D&D campaign with a lot of inter- (and intra-) faction intrigue, as well as lot of whimsical "we're not in Kansas anymore" kinds of adventures, but it Escadia were presented as being in total chaos, each of these factions could have their own really sinister and iconic foes for the party to fight against, seeking a difficult solution to a metaphysical problem.

I liked mysteries, and I think the nature of the Severance and the whereabouts (and identity) of The Sovereign That Was could be fun things to delve into in a campaign.