So, I've been piecemeal reading bits of the scarred lands books I have over the last few days. I remember loving this setting when I was younger and applied far less critical thinking while reading.
I can still see the what I loved in the setting. How various tropes depart from the standard enough to make things interesting with a nice mix of dark and light.
Age and experience are revealing some things that I find far more annoying than in my youth, and I hope that the reboot isn't just a blind conversion of the old setting. I'm hoping that a critical eye is being applied to the setting and that it is updated to cover two specific areas of concern for me.
First, I keep running across small logical inconsistencies. As an example, Hollowfaust/Lokil : Hollowfaust has a population of 22000 or 30000 (two different sources) and has well defined sources of water/food production. Lokil has a population of 50000 that all reside in essentially a single building and a hollowed out mountain with no food source other than trade at the end of a long hostile and sporadic trade route. In my mind canon I have cut Lokil's population to 5000 and at least given them some local food production, but it would be nice if the new edition addressed issues like this without me needing to. Basic needs of a population shouldn't be an afterthought.
Second, with the kickstarter updating the Wise and the Wicked, I would love to see these and other characters become far more GM friendly with a wider spread of levels so they can actually be used in campaigns. The setting suffers far too much from the Elminster/Gandalf syndrome of every named NPC being in the 16th to 20th level bracket of power. For example I see no real reason that Queen Geleeda needs to be a 18th level NPC. In my mind canon I automatically knock her down to at most 13th level, allowing mid/high level characters to interact with her and still leaving other challenges in the Calastia royalty. She is a Queen, and has excellent minion power regardless of level, and at a lower NPC level she actually has a reason to call on her hag superiors if she gets into actual trouble.
Again, I am rereading the setting very piecemeal, but I am sure there are other areas of this excellent setting that could use refining, and I'd love the hear others thoughts.
I can still see the what I loved in the setting. How various tropes depart from the standard enough to make things interesting with a nice mix of dark and light.
Age and experience are revealing some things that I find far more annoying than in my youth, and I hope that the reboot isn't just a blind conversion of the old setting. I'm hoping that a critical eye is being applied to the setting and that it is updated to cover two specific areas of concern for me.
First, I keep running across small logical inconsistencies. As an example, Hollowfaust/Lokil : Hollowfaust has a population of 22000 or 30000 (two different sources) and has well defined sources of water/food production. Lokil has a population of 50000 that all reside in essentially a single building and a hollowed out mountain with no food source other than trade at the end of a long hostile and sporadic trade route. In my mind canon I have cut Lokil's population to 5000 and at least given them some local food production, but it would be nice if the new edition addressed issues like this without me needing to. Basic needs of a population shouldn't be an afterthought.
Second, with the kickstarter updating the Wise and the Wicked, I would love to see these and other characters become far more GM friendly with a wider spread of levels so they can actually be used in campaigns. The setting suffers far too much from the Elminster/Gandalf syndrome of every named NPC being in the 16th to 20th level bracket of power. For example I see no real reason that Queen Geleeda needs to be a 18th level NPC. In my mind canon I automatically knock her down to at most 13th level, allowing mid/high level characters to interact with her and still leaving other challenges in the Calastia royalty. She is a Queen, and has excellent minion power regardless of level, and at a lower NPC level she actually has a reason to call on her hag superiors if she gets into actual trouble.
Again, I am rereading the setting very piecemeal, but I am sure there are other areas of this excellent setting that could use refining, and I'd love the hear others thoughts.
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