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Halloween Jack posted:Funny thing is, he's 100% right about prestige classes and prerequisites and needing to plan out your PC's entire career at character creation. (Well, if you want to play a martial character that doesn't suck. If you're a full spellcaster it doesn't really matter.) This is one reason I like advancement systems where getting good at something you were initially bad at isn't a bad idea and where the baseline for 'competent' is pretty attainable. Because I prefer not having to plan everything my character is going to do from day 1, since I get bored with just ticking boxes and never having an incentive to change things up if I feel like it.
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Jan 2, 2020 19:26
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PurpleXVI posted:Each dragon type was visually distinct as far back as the 2nd ed AD&D MM, at least. 3.x caricatured these shapes to some extent, but they're still clearly descended from 2e. The 1e monster manual started the shapes. (No color in the book needed to make them distinct somehow.)  The 2e versions are not too different just in color.  3e just made the modern looks.  Tiamat back in 1e still had the distinctive heads. 
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Jan 2, 2020 19:53
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Yeah, remember lot of the original sourcebooks are B&W printing as color printing was ridiculously expensive and the quality isn't the best, so they're going to try to make everything as distinctive as possible.
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Jan 2, 2020 20:25
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Kaza42 posted:When I first started playing, I was a kid who joined my dad's group of old college buddies as they taught me D&D. You could introduce a new character at any time, level 1, and even control more than one character at a time. We'd have the low level guys hang out behind the main characters and get XP from loot until they were ready to join the fight. Now, as I was a literal child and this was my first experience with games I didn't realize how dumb this was at first. It took until a fight we had against a green dragon, where the dragon did a breath weapon that instantly killed all our low level guys in the back, for me to think "wait, that doesn't seem right". While my dad and his group kept up the "start at level 1" thing, by the time I started running games I quickly settled on "everyone has the same xp at all times" system A friend of mine still does this in 3.x, and tops it off by giving out per-session XP, so you're even further behind if you can't make it one week. Nice guy, but I quit playing with him years ago for a reason.
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Jan 2, 2020 20:35
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SirPhoebos posted:I was half expecting there to be some bullshit diplomacy checks because even after the reveal the Metallics initial response would be "That's awful...but an oath's an oath! Wouldn't want to be called deal-breakers, now do we? Interestingly I do not recall if Paladine/Fizban ever chewed out the metallics for this. I presume that he knew all along, as could possibly end up helping the heroes get into Sanction. Between that and the gods sitting on their thumbs until Goldmoon finds the Disks, they seem to be operating on the "don't do anything until the chosen one gets involved" logic. Mors Rattus posted:Your average fantasy author, and particularly your average D&D writer, has absolutely no idea how polytheism works. The Krynnish pantheon is clearly modeled after the petty and dictatorial whims of the Greek pantheon, but the writers try using Christian morality as an ethos to excuse said deities' actions and then things start breaking down. I wasn't kidding when I once made an analogy to Dragonlances' gods being like abusive parents; the "mortals are spoiled children when praying for their suffering to end" more or less makes the subtext actual text. Libertad! fucked around with this message at 23:42 on Jan 2, 2020 |
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Jan 2, 2020 23:39
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Libertad! posted:Interestingly I do not recall if Paladine/Fizban ever chewed out the metallics for this. I presume that he knew all along, as could possibly end up helping the heroes get into Sanction. Between that and the gods sitting on their thumbs until Goldmoon finds the Disks, they seem to be operating on the "don't do anything until the chosen one gets involved" logic. I figured that the main reason the Gods mostly don't get directly involved (Takhisis aside) is that in any kind of direct conflict they'd probably destroy the world and each other. I think that by the end of the War of Souls even the other Evil gods were sick of Takhisis's bullshit.
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Jan 3, 2020 01:18
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Everyone posted:I figured that the main reason the Gods mostly don't get directly involved (Takhisis aside) is that in any kind of direct conflict they'd probably destroy the world and each other. I think that by the end of the War of Souls even the other Evil gods were sick of Takhisis's bullshit. I don't know if any new Dragonlance novels have been released in the last 10 years or so,* but in the post-War of Souls it looks like Chemosh is quickly shaping up to be the new "Big Bad Evil Deity." He is behind one of the major villains in the Key of Destiny Adventure Path, and in the current era he's trying to remake himself not as a "deity of death and undead" but as a "preserver of the worthy." And given that you cannot plane shift to the afterlife/outer planes in Dragonlance, he's been spreading propaganda that souls do not exist and that immortality is the only means of saving yourself from oblivion. This has the double effect of rationalizing the creation of undead minions (there's no spirit looking on down from heaven at what you're doing with its corpse) while also desiring it for oneself. It's a rather interesting means of exploiting a setting cosmology for why people would choose undeath. In most settings not only is there an afterlife, you can still contact the departed and the good-aligned planes are pretty swank places to live. When you have to rely upon the word of the gods (who btw caused the Cataclysm) for what lies beyond you may not want to chance it. *looking up novels on the Lexicon place 2010 as the latest.
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Jan 3, 2020 02:26
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Libertad! posted:We get brief descriptions on various false faiths. Most of Ansalon is ... antitheist (“the gods are not worthy of respect”). Not wrong. MonsterEnvy posted:Takhisis is kind of lacking compared to Tiamat. Her heads are all just generic dragon heads while Tiamat's heads properly match each type of Chromatic dragon. I wonder if this was intentional, or if all the dragons are off-model in general because it's not an official WotC book. They might have rules about this, just like with Mindflayers and Beholders.
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Jan 3, 2020 03:54
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Libertad! posted:Interestingly I do not recall if Paladine/Fizban ever chewed out the metallics for this. I presume that he knew all along, as could possibly end up helping the heroes get into Sanction. Between that and the gods sitting on their thumbs until Goldmoon finds the Disks, they seem to be operating on the "don't do anything until the chosen one gets involved" logic. The Dragonlance take on Good and Evil is extremely Mormon. If you grew up LDS, you can easily see the same morality reflected in the so-called "good" gods. Makes sense, considering that both Hickman and We is were Mormon.
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Jan 3, 2020 11:13
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Halloween Jack posted:Funny thing is, he's 100% right about prestige classes and prerequisites and needing to plan out your PC's entire career at character creation. (Well, if you want to play a martial character that doesn't suck. If you're a full spellcaster it doesn't really matter.) Precisely, it's interesting how he gets one thing right... and the rest of it all wrong.
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Jan 3, 2020 11:35
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FrozenGoldfishGod posted:The Dragonlance take on Good and Evil is extremely Mormon. If you grew up LDS, you can easily see the same morality reflected in the so-called "good" gods. Makes sense, considering that both Hickman and We is were Mormon. As a non Mormon and non-expert in such affairs, I would be interested in hearing more on this.
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Jan 3, 2020 12:22
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Libertad! posted:As a non Mormon and non-expert in such affairs, I would be interested in hearing more on this. Well, basically, it boils down to the Mormon answer to the question of evil: If God exists, is all-powerful, all-knowing, and all-benevolent, then why does evil exist? The answer according to Mormonism is twofold: first, Evil exists to test people so that they can show that they really are good; second, they teach that you cannot have a thing without its opposite. So in order for any amount of Good to exist, there must be an equal amount of Evil. Once you understand this, you can easily understand how the Kingpriest and his servants could remain Good, while still doing all that horrible poo poo: they'd removed too much Evil from the equation, so now Good became essentially the default state - anything that they did was Good. It also explains why the Gods of Good allowed/caused the Cataclysm: they had to restore enough Evil that Good became a meaningful quantifier. It's a pretty silly idea, but once you understand that the authors (at the time, at least) really believed this, it also explains so much else about the setting (the Black Robes being allowed to exist, for example, and why Fizban can be such an - at best - obstructive shitlord, while still also being the chief God of Good; why Neutral gods are more about 'preserving the balance' than pursuing whatever agenda interests them, as in other settings; and why Raistlin merking most of these divine jackasses led to cataclysmic destruction.) That idea, by the way, is one of the core ideas of Mormonism, which is why I said Mormonism runs strong through the very core of the setting, as well as the set-dressing like the Disks of Mishakal and the inaction of the Good Gods until their Prophet picked them up.
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Jan 3, 2020 19:29
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Holy shitballs, Neotech Edge actually came out. And apparently did last month too. I did not expect this.
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Jan 3, 2020 19:35
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FrozenGoldfishGod posted:Well, basically, it boils down to the Mormon answer to the question of evil: If God exists, is all-powerful, all-knowing, and all-benevolent, then why does evil exist? The answer according to Mormonism is twofold: first, Evil exists to test people so that they can show that they really are good; second, they teach that you cannot have a thing without its opposite. So in order for any amount of Good to exist, there must be an equal amount of Evil. Well this is...something. Do you know where I can read up more on this 'equality good and evil' philosophy among Latter-Day Saints and their teachings? Google-fu is not exactly helping me, and Mormons tend to be cagier about their more controversial beliefs so I don't know if fairmormon and church websites may be illuminating on this or not. Libertad! fucked around with this message at 23:32 on Jan 3, 2020 |
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Jan 3, 2020 23:28
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Just for clarity: Tracy Hickman is LDS, Margaret Weis isn't. And while there's undeniably Mormon influences veining Dragonlance, particularly aesthetic elements like the Disks of Mishakel echoing the Mormon foundational myth of the Gold Plates and the whole of the Cataclysm being a bit of a Mormon thought experiment on "what if good people pray for evil things?", the whole thing with the gods and cosmic balance is really more emergent from the baseline D&D alignment system and the logic is invented to justify the resulting system. Like, this was around the same time that TSR's writers as a whole were really fixated on "filling in the grid" in pretty much every way. Air Elementals aren't just a monster in a game manual, they're a denizen of the Elemental Plane of Air, an infinite expense of air where air creatures live, and if there's an infinite plane of air then there must be an infinite plane of fog in between the plane of air and the plane of water, and ergo there must be fog elementals! One of the starting conceits of Dragonlance was that the alignment grid wasn't just a game system, but the metaphysical basis of reality with a 1 Alignment : 1 God natural state. Cosmic Balance, which really isn't an LDS doctrine, is just the easiest way to make that grid make sense, and happens to satisfy the symmetrical aesthetic that's at the heart of grid-filling in the first place. A lot of the Mormonisms that do end up in Dragonlance are very much scrubbed through the same nerdification and fictionalization as, say, Norse mythology. RPGs as a whole have a really fascinating relationship with religion because they love the history and symbology and ritual of religion, but scrub it of any of the doctrinal meat that forms the actual belief systems. Religions in D&D are super powered sports teams, not metaphysical questions of faith and fate and the nature of the soul. Nowhere is this more obvious than the fact that the Gods of Krynn are really just nth level NPCs who hand out goodies to people who rep the team colours. A good example of this scrubbing process, going from actual theology to game supplement, would be the moons of Krynn. Mormon eschatology and afterlife involves a kind of cosmic sorting process. For the most part it's Judgement Day as per Christianity in general, but with four degrees of judgement referred to as the three glories and Outer Darkness. In actual doctrine the idea is that Actual Evil (people and spirits who actively, knowingly rebelled against God) gets tossed to some space outside the boundaries of reality while everyone else gets sorted based on worthiness (as determined by the test that is mortality) into three spaces ranging conceptually from "comfortable tropical vacation" up to "actual heaven". This, of course, doesn't map 1:1 to the three moons, but the seed is clearly there for fictionalization. Likewise LDS theology doesn't have the rigid Cosmic Balance of Dragonlance, but does have a doctrine of "opposition in all things", which again stems from what FrozenGoldfishGod said, that the Mormon purpose of mortality is all just a test for that great afterlife sorting hat ceremony. So while this also doesn't map 1:1, Mormons don't believe that there must always be Evil in equal and exact proportion to Good, the belief that opposition and evil are a divinely permitted force boils down pretty easy into Cosmic Balance if you're looking for a reason to justify why Team Evil gets to hang out at the wizard tower in your elf game. Sorry if I ran away with this, I just... I happen to know a lot about the subject.
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Jan 3, 2020 23:35
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It's really interesting! Don't feel bad about posting a bunch about such things. I know almost nothing about Mormonism and I'm happy to hear about it.
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Jan 3, 2020 23:46
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Yeah, I find the LDS theology fascinating and curiously kind in their afterlife from what I have heard, although of course this is distinct from the actions of the actual, factual LDS church. 
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Jan 4, 2020 00:05
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FoldableHuman posted:Mormon things. Thank you for the explanation.  That's pretty cool in regards to the three moons front. I recall one of the AD&D adventures involving traversing the surface of Lunitari, so I wonder how much "celestial kingdom" stuff is present there.Regarding Weis, I could not find any mention of her actual religious beliefs, so I presume many people think she's Mormon on account of Hickman being one. Nessus posted:Yeah, I find the LDS theology fascinating and curiously kind in their afterlife from what I have heard, although of course this is distinct from the actions of the actual, factual LDS church. A lot of people give Mormons the shaft due to some honestly kooky beliefs. I don't really care so much about things like the belief in a flesh and blood God or quibblings over the Trinity so much as their more problematic beliefs which have a more deleterious real-world impact. *coughproposition8cough* Libertad! fucked around with this message at 00:20 on Jan 4, 2020 |
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Jan 4, 2020 00:16
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Nessus posted:Yeah, I find the LDS theology fascinating and curiously kind in their afterlife from what I have heard, although of course this is distinct from the actions of the actual, factual LDS church. There’s a good argument to be made, I think, that certain kinds of soteriological ‘kindness’ primarily serve to justify unkind behavior in life; Mormons baptizing the dead of other faiths comes to mind. As does the classic medieval theology of serfdom: you suffer in this world, but if you serve loyally you’ve got a good chance of eternal paradise.
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Jan 4, 2020 00:27
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Yeah, in theory the baptism of the dead of other religions is kindness from the perspective of the Mormons. But from the perspective of, say, my Jewish rear end? gently caress no, get out of here with that theo-imperialist bullshit.
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Jan 4, 2020 00:34
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In general loving with someone else's afterlife/religious ceremonies is not a good thing.
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Jan 4, 2020 00:38
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  Ansalon in the Age of Despair, Part I This chapter is quite extensive, longer the the previous two chapters combined. It goes into detail on the overarching history of the 4th Age, beginning from the year right after the Cataclysm to 4 years after the end of the War of the Lance. It also covers every major region/country of note as its own entry along with adventure hooks and how things change during the War of the Lance proper. The Dragon Empire, which is technically a bunch of nations and occupied territories rolled into one, is a special exception. It’s also a very picture-heavy chapter, where almost each of the 27 countries/regions has its own map; unfortunately the resolution for said images in the PDF is so low-resolution the text is near-indecipherable, so instead we’ll use a map of Ansalon as a whole. For this post I’m covering the timeline and first half of the country entries. One thing I’d like to note is that this chapter outright contradicts the prevailing authorial statement of the mortals being ungrateful and the oh-so-wise gods waiting for the mortals to accept them again. For just this occasion I’m implementing a The People Didn’t Leave the Gods, The Gods Left the People Counter where I will note every major instance of the non-evil gods being full of it. Age of Despair Timeline Dragonlance’s calendar is focused around the Cataclysm, with years designating BC (Before Cataclysm) and AC (After Cataclysm). The first adventure of the Chronicles, Dragons of Despair, takes place in the autumn of 351 AC. 1-140 AC, the Dark Ages: Everything is terrible. The Cataclysm changed the face of Krynn, magic becomes rare to the point of legend, the dwarves of Thorbadin turn on each other in a bloody conflict, and violence, disease, and famine became widespread from the collapse of society. 141 AC, the Gods Return: Takhisis transported the Temple of Istar from its undersea ruins to central Ansalon, at the village of Neraka. The Temple’s Foundation Stone is part of a ritual to return her to Krynn as a flesh and blood goddess. 141-152 AC, the Rise of Dragons: The chromatic dragons, long in slumber much like their metallics, were reawakened by Takhisis. 157 AC, Plans Awry: The Foundation Stone was stolen by a nomadic human by the name of Berem. It becomes embedded in his chest, granting him immortality. As a result Takhisis is unable to enter the world of Krynn. Her minions searched for him in vain for the next two centuries. 287 AC, Egg Theft: The chromatics steal the good dragons’ eggs while their parents are in a decades-long sleep. 296 AC, the Oath of Noninterference: Once the metallic dragons wake up, Takhisis blackmailed them to stay out of the continent’s affairs and the oncomoning war. Unknowing of their eggs’ location, they reluctantly obeyed. 332-341 AC, Rise of Darkness: Duulket Ariakas, a former Black Robe Wizard and current warlord, made contact with Takhisis after finding a teleported temple of Istar in the mountains of central Ansalon. He started to gather various mercenary groups together to take control of local tribes, and gains the alliance of local chromatic dragons aiding the call. The Dragon Empire and its Dragonarmies are formed. 342 AC, Draconians Created: With the aid of a Black Robe wizard, a priest of Takhisis, and a red dragon, the Dragonarmies discovered a means of creating draconians from good dragon eggs to bolster their numbers. 342-349 AC, Occupation of Eastern Ansalon: The fledgling Dragon Empire’s forces moved east into the ogre nations of Blöde and Kern as well as the human tribes of Khur and the Blood Sea Isles. A half-ogre by the name of Lucien Takar became the Black Dragon Highlord and unites the ogres under service, but the Khur tribes that refuse to bow to the Dark Queen organized a local insurgency. Said insurgency is still ongoing but losing ground, and by 349 AC virtually all of the human kingdoms of eastern Ansalson swear fealty to the Dragonarmies. 348 AC, the Nordmaarian Campaign: The Red and Green Dragonarmies invade Nordmaar, the kingdom adjacent to Solamnia. They are conquered with token resistance in under two weeks. 348-350 AC, the Silvanesti Campaign: The Silvanesti elves, being isolationists, don’t really care about the affairs of other races beyond their borders. The Dragon Empire signed a nonaggression pact with King Lorac, but the elven lord knew that it was only a matter of time before their soldiers breach the forests. And that the Green Dragonarmy did. This war quickly became the Dragon Empire’s Vietnam, although much shorter-lived: the elves have a significant amount of arcane magic, civilians are trained in the use of bows and swords, and the forest canopies are quite ideal for concealment from aerial forces. Both sides suffered heavy losses, but in time the Dragonarmy was about to claim the capital. King Lorac used a Dragon Orb to defend the city, but sadly the Orb took control of him instead, plunging the forest kingdom into a living nightmare which slaughtered elf and Dragonarmy soldiers alike. The threat of Silvanesti was ended, but it came at a cost. 350 AC, Recouping Losses: Emperor Ariakas spent most of the year attending to domestic affairs. Local uprisings were growing in number as a result of said losses, and the Dragonarmy leadership saw rapid changes in turnover from reassignment, demotions, and executions as inevitable blame was sought for the losses in Silvanesti. Verminaard became the Red Dragonarmy leader, while the creation of specialized units for the White, Black and Green Dragonarmies were underway for unorthodox forms of warfare. Money was spent on maintaining infrastructure, particularly in siphoning funds from occupied territories to make up for losses elsewhere. The White Dragonarmy was relocated to the Icewall and Sea of Dust for more suitable territory for their dragons. And invasions for Solamnia were planned due to said nation being the breadbasket of Ansalson. 351 AC, War with Solamnia: Solamnia is one of Ansalon’s largest countries and home to the most fertile farmland. Ariakas assigned the two greatest Dragonarmies, the Blue and Red, to take control of the knights’ eastern provinces. The bearby kingdoms of Throt and Lemish, who were no allies of Solamnia, threw their lot in with the Dragonarmies. The Red Dragonarmy conquered much of southern Solamnia, which they used as a staging ground to send squads into Abanasinia due to rumors of the Blue Crystal Staff in the region. Instead of sending legions immediately they used disguised draconians (and some goblins) for reconnaissance and diplomacy. 351 AC, Dragons of Autumn Twilight: The Heroes of the Lance (or the PCs) find knowledge of the true gods in Abanasinian ruins. Abanasinian towns and the elven nation of Qualinesti were invaded and razed once the Red Dragonarmy made its presence known. The Dragonarmies learned from their mistakes in Silvanesti to perform differently, and much of Qualinesti was already evacuating by the time they reached their forest borders. The Red Dragonarmy brokered a deal with the dark dwarf clans of Thorbadin to provoke a civil war, but were ultimately unsuccessful. The Red Dragon Highlord, Verminaard, was killed in the uprisings. Thorbadin remained a free nation and safe haven for Abanasinian refugees. 352 AC, Dragons of Winter Night: representatives from Mount Nevermind, Hylo, Ergoth, Solamnia, and various unconquered territories begin initially unsuccessful talks to find the best way to fight the Dragon Empire. The city of Tarsis, was razed by the Blue Dragonarmy and occupied. The Heroes of the Lance found one of the Dragon Orbs in Icewall Castle, and the White Dragon Highlord, Feal-Thas was killed. The secrets of making the Dragonlances were rediscovered in Southern Ergoth. The Battle of the High Clerist’s Tower, the last major bastion of Solamnic resistance against the Blue Dragonarmy, was the forces of good’s first significant military victory against the Dragon Empire. 352 AC, Concurrent, Dragons of Spring Dawning: The Heroes of Spring visit some undersea ruins, find Berem, and learn about his role in Takhisis’ plans to come back into the world. They also visited the sacred site of Godshome where they got divine insights from the Gods of Light. The Heroes of Spring and Winter reunited to assault the Temple of Istar in Neraka, where Emperor Ariakas planned to open up the portal and let the Dark Queen into the world. 353 AC, End of the War of the Lance: Takhisis was defeated based on one of six possible ending resolutions in the modules, or in the novels when Berem sacrifices himself to close the portal. The Whitestone forces push back the now-fractious and disunited Dragonarmies. Only the Blue Dragonarmy ended up with any appreciable territory for years to come. 355 AC, Rebuilding: Gunthar Uth Wistan became the new Grand Master of the Knights of Solamnia and reformed the Measure to be updated for modern times. The Qualinesti and Silvanesti resettled in their homelands and began rebuilding, but the latter group has a long task ahead in cleansing their forest of Lorac’s Nightmare.  Geography & Climate of Ansalon Before the nations proper we have sweeping generalities of the continent of Ansalon. For one, it (and the world of Krynn by extension) is quite small: the continent reaches 1,320 miles from the north to the far south, and 960 miles east to west. Ansalon’s in the southern hemisphere and its northern tip still manages to reach the equator. While I’ve heard complaints that this makes the setting too small, it’s far from easy to travel through: the central portion of the continent is dominated by foreboding mountains and badlands long inhabited by ogres and now is the heart of the Dragon Empire. In the east a gigantic whirlpool the size of a country dominates the seas, its currents picking up red clay from the ocean floor and giving it a creepy blood-red color*. Southern Ansalon is more rugged and chilly, a pseudo-continent of frozen water known as the Icereach creating a land bridge with the southern shore. Western Ansalon is pleasant in comparison, with Solamnia and Ergoth containing the most temperate climates and fertile farmland. Northern Ansalon is similar to the West, but its far reaches contain a tropical climate of jungles in the nation of Nordmaar. *and superstition that it’s the blood of the inhabitants of Istar who sunk beneath the waves. Abanasinia is our first entry and coincidentally the first land detailed proper in the Dragonlance novels and adventures. It is a frontier region where people from all over the continent migrate for a new shot at life. A tribe of indigenous nomadic tribes are known as the Plainsmen and modeled off of real-world Sioux/Lakota people. Abanasinia’s towns are all autonomous with their own local systems of government, although the Seeker religion is the closest thing to a national power. The Red Dragonarmy would invade during the War of the Lance after picking up rumors of an artifact of the true gods being in the region. Several of the adventure hooks are cool, such as a red-robe wizard getting kidnapped during the first local Mage’s Fair in an attempt to promote good PR for the Wizards of High Sorcery. Another involves some kender finding a magical ruins with a room which tells tales of the past through visions, whose “Second Dragon War” pseudo-movie was interrupted by dark dwarves driving them out. Balifor was once a lush region of endless forest before the Cataclysm, but now it is a mixture of forest, savannah, and desert. The people here are traditionally nomadic members of the Fin-Maskar tribe, avowed enemies of the Khur tribe who threw their lot in with the Green Dragonarmy. Currently said army has claimed the various port cities and are doing their best to uproot Fin-Maskar resistance. Said resistance movements haven’t picked up much steam due to the dire reputation of dragons and the unholy arts of Takhisis’ dark pilgrims. A rough and tumble underworld thrives within the shady back alleys of the ports, some genuine freedom fighters and others wicked cutthroats out for themselves. Blöde is home to the ruins of the first mortal civilization of Ansalon; although the ancient cities of the ogres now stand in swampy ruins, the current members of giantkind still hold pride in their heritage. They’re even more industrialized than their cousins elsewhere, with their fertile soil feeding the Dragonarmies and their soldiers proudly serving in the Dark Queen’s forces. There are a sizable minority of human fortresses and settlements, their presence tolerated as part of a longstanding non-aggression pact with the ogres. Blöde is very much a land of history and its inevitable progress, full of old Solamnic fortresses now inhabited by squatters, an old city of the magics and arts of the ogre empire attracting diggers looking for some unknown artifact, and even a local human barony with an eccentric ruler: quote:Langtree (Small Town, 1,891): Langtree is an independent barony located northwest of Vantal. The town of Langtree is ruled by Ivor of Langtree (LG male human noble 4/fighter 7), known to most people as the Mad Baron. His father was a knight that had the good sense to pack up and leave Solamnia during the turmoil following the Cataclysm. Within a secluded valley along the coast of Blödehelm, the family built a wooden stockade and worked the land. When refugees and exiles wandered through Ivor’s mother would take them in. A great many exiles fled the mountains and choose to remain and stand against the goblins, hobgoblins, and ogres from the east. In time, the city of Langtree formed and a fortress was established within it. He is known as the Mad Baron for venerating his worship of the ancient god Kiri-Jolith. He is an excellent military strategist and has signed a contract with King Wilhelm to assist in the defense of the kingdom. The People Didn’t Leave the Gods, The Gods Left the People Counter: 1 Blood Sea Isles includes the minotaur islands of Mithas and Kothas, the famed sailors of Saifhum, and too many smaller islands to count. So named for the giant crimson whirlpool swirling around Istar’s former capital, the people living here are the descendants of Istarans lucky enough to have been living in the highlands and mountains when the Cataclysm struck. Not unlike the backstory to the setting of the Legend of Zelda, Wind Waker. The minotaur islands are ruled over by a single emperor with literal laws of might makes right: trial by combat is used to settle the majority of disputes and challenges, from mating rights to monetary compensation and even the election of leaders! The Great Circus is a Colosseum-style affair in the capital whose games are vital to this last part. The humans of Saifhum by contrast are a collection of relatively autonomous towns connected by rails with wind-powered sail cars, who have different relationships with their neighbors. The largest settlement of Sea Reach is serving as a port for the Red Dragonarmy, although said empire’s presence is little-felt in the Blood Sea otherwise. The mysterious Isle of Karthay is home to the tallest mountains in all of Ansalon and home to the Kyrie, a near-mythical race of flying bird-people. The mountains’ upper reaches are said to hold lush jungles with all manner of strange life and treasures. Dragon Isles are a tropical island chain far off the coast of Ansalon whose precise location shifts regularly due to ancient teleportation magic overlaying the entire region. It is a veritable utopia, home to virtually all of the good-aligned dragon clans who moved here to rest after the end of the Third Dragon War. They live in harmony with the various humanoid races, who in turn do not have the same racial strife as their couterparts in Ansalon proper. Elf and minotaur communities happily trade and support one another, and the dragons do not rule over them. They treated their smaller, bipedal neighbors as peers although they help with tasks said races may not accomplish so easily. Most settlements, both dragon and non-dragon, are small villages, with only a single city of several thousand serving as a capital. Auralastican, said city, is set on a gentle slope with beautiful buildings sized for all of the islands’ races and is reminiscent of architecture from the long-gone Age of Might. The five dragon clans carved out their own territories suitable to their ecology: the silver dragons lair high in mountain summits, the brass dragons make their home on an island with numerous limestone caverns, etc. The only thing marring this seemingly-perfect world is the disappearance of the metallic dragon eggs. A group of chromatic dragons disguising themselves as humanoid pilgrims to the capital city managed to abscond with the eggs while the metallics were sleeping. As the good dragons cannot intervene on the continent without risking the lives of their children, they stay their hand and remain. The adventure hooks already presume that the PCs have already found and set foot on these remote islands, with hooks like investigating some mysterious huldrefolk* ruins, a silver dragon hiring the PCs to hunt down hydras whose eggs were part of shipwrecked cargo, etc. *Dragonlance’s equivalent to Grey Aliens. Estwilde is a large domain of swampland flanked by mountains in the east and west. The people here are mostly nomadic humans or ogres and goblins, and were one of the first regions along with Blöde to be taken over by the Dragon Empire after building their forces up in Neraka. Although ‘taking over’ is stretching it: the Dragonarmies mostly use it as a land to set up training bases and maneuver troops to the Solamnic front. The less xenophobic Estwildians do not mind the influx of trade and opportunity for loot and plunder by signing up with Emperor Ariakas’ forces. The three major human groups are as follows: the Lor-Tai tribespeople govern everyday life via observance of numerous taboos, including refusal to speak in the presence of outsiders which prevents most meaningful contact. The Lahutians are cannibals believed to be descended from human-goblin cross breeds although they’re almost entirely human in ancestry. The Mountain Barbarians are the most numerous of the lot and form the “Estwildean” cultural standard but little else is told of them. Some interesting sites include Darkling Hall which is an unholy place where it’s believed the gods of evil first entered the world, the Singing Mountains where mesmerizing music plays by unknown singers, and a small village of gnome biologists whose plant-based monster experiments are running amok. quote:The people of Estwilde have no true religion, revering regional gods, ancestors, or fetishes. This area was once a stronghold of Gilean´s worship, but, after the Cataclysm, the religion lapsed and only a smattering of dogma-followers remained. These priests use dice called the Calantina that are, according to them, capable of predicting the future by interpreting signs of different animals with prophetic verse. The People Didn’t Leave the Gods, The Gods Left the People Counter: 2 Goodlund is a field of grasslands east of Balifor. The plains and forests are fertile and the weather is mild year-round, making it highly populated by all manner of people from Kagonesti elves to reclusive centaur and nomadic humans. Unfortunately a significant amount of gnolls and sligs (evil amphibians) find the territory just as suitable to their taste and menace their neighbors. Goodlund is also home to the other major bastion of Kender in Ansalon beyond their homeland of Hylo. The kender live in a forest city by the name of Kendermore and have a rather carefree life in the ramshackle city. A nearby pirate port has set up here as the safest place to set anchor on account of the beach being surrounded by a “kender-infested forest.” The Dragonarmies have long given up on policing this region due in no small part to the resilience of local kender who are experts at setting up traps in their forest home, and humans who are managing to remain beyond the Dragonarmies’ yoke due to being spread thin (which also hampers their ability to strike out at said Dragonarmies). Instead the forces of evil resort to hiring local gnoll and slig bands to wage war on the people of Goodlund. A few interesting places include a set of islands off to the east inhabited by barbarian tribes turned aesthetic monks whose ancestors were taken and raised by the Scions, Krynn’s first sorcerers. They were raised in an artificial environment as part of said sorcerers’ attempts of training a community to physical and mental perfection. Their civilization of Claren Elian was actually the explanation for the existence of the monk class in early Dragonlance products, as said class didn’t really fit into the setting’s supernatural/magic structure along with not having any notable Fantasy Counterpart East Asian cultures. There’s also a set of ruins presided over by a gully dwarf which actually has a funny joke: quote:A tribe of gully dwarves has taken up residence in the ruins, declaring it “This Place”. They are known as the Glug clan and their ruler HighGlug Muk the First (CN male gully dwarf rogue 5) is known for his conniving and manipulative ways. He rules over his clan with an iron fist. He found the iron fist while digging through some refuse in an underground layer of the ruins.  Hylo (Kenderhome) is officially part of Northern Ergoth but the humans let them self-govern due to the fact that they’re not exactly eager to try policing a nation of kender. The kender do maintain positive relations with Ergoth as well as the goblins of Sikket’hul who are regular trading partners. Although the government is listed as an Oligarchy, Kenderhome has no true government in that the closest equivalent it has are local rulers who treat civil service more as a fun diversion than an obligation or privilege: quote:Elections are run each year to see who will be the next leader, but very often elections are decided by contests such as who can spit a watermelon seed the farthest, or stand on their head the longest. The games on Election Day are what make the whole system worthwhile. quote:The Cataclysm scared the kender of Kenderhome. They couldn’t understand why the gods had punished them along with Istar. These kender became somewhat subdued and meek. Many also became fanatically religious, making daily offerings to the gods and joining any new religion they encountered. They closely guarded their borders, thinking that it may have been their interaction with the outside world that caused the gods to punish them. Within three generations, however, many kender who had not been directly affected by the tragedy had begun to return to their normal optimistic selves. The People Didn’t Leave the Gods, The Gods Left the People Counter: 3 The War of the Lance thankfully left Hylo (and by extension Northern Ergoth) unscatched. But the news of interesting things happening on the mainland drew more than a few curious kender to sail across the sea and find out what’s the big deal. The adventure hooks and interesting places include a magical tower inhabited by a ghost who warns the locals of danger, a gnome who hosts plays with clockwork figurines having said prized possessions go missing, the ever-so-classic “trolls/bugbears* are attacking villages,” and the appearance of an excavated ancient passageway which even the kender are too scared to investigate! *the bugbears are noted as being different than the otherwise chill goblins. Icereach is technically the name of the icy pseudo-continent dominating Krynn’s polar south, although only the relatively narrow band of land touching Ansalon has been explored to anyone’s knowledge. It is a cold, harsh realm inhabited mostly by nomadic humans known as the Ice Folk and the thanoi (evil walrus-people). Both groups war with each over the scant territories and resources while white dragons hunt whatever fresh meat they can catch. There was once a mighty ogre kingdom here but it fell long before even the Cataclysm. The White Dragonarmy relocated to this bitter land: its Dragon Highlord, the evil elf Feal-Thas, took residence in Icewall Castle to officially supply troop transports through southern Ansalon. But unofficially they are there to find and guard one of the fabled Dragon Orbs! Said army’s resources are stretched very thin, and make use of foreign minotaur soldiers and thanoi raiders to secure territory. Interesting places and adventure hooks include a gnome research colony which has some smaller vessels capable of traversing the subarctic ice, a massive white arch in a valley believed by Ice Folk shamans (false clerics) to be a portal to the celestial realms, and a remorhaz-infested cave whose icy foundations reshape and reform from the intense body heat generated by the creatures. Kayolin (Garnet-Thax) is one of the three major dwarven kingdoms and the one with the most contact with outsiders. Located in a mountain range bordered by Solamnia and Lemish, it is a rather liberal and tolerant realm in comparison to others of their race: gully dwarves are treated with respect and as full citizens as opposed to sub-dwarven vermin, they opened their gates to the hill dwarves, and forged strong bonds with Solamnia. In the latter case the two realms supply each other with goods that cannot be easily gained domestically. They also form a natural barrier against the enemy nation of Lemish for Solamnia, so there’s that matter of practicality too. quote:Religion still plays a big part in the culture of Kayolin. The current ruler, Governor Erran Flowstone (LN male dwarf noble 4/cleric 7), is a priest himself, and he has not forgotten the teachings of Reorx. Instead of training as a warrior while he was young, Governor Flowstone took up the vestments of his faith. Many of the Kayolin stubbornly refuse to believe they have been abandoned by Reorx, and patiently await the return of “the Forge” back into their lives. Since the Cataclysm they have kept a forge lit and burning, heralding Reorx’s anticipated return. The People Didn’t Leave the Gods, The Gods Left the People Counter: 4 Half the population lives in the tiered capital city of Garnet-Thax, with smaller villages and towns located either on surface openings throughout the mountain range or within the network of tunnels kept secret from non-dwarves. A fair amount of the adventure hooks tie into the forgotten bowels of the mountain and the strange beings which lie within, such as a race of “deep goblins” and unknown monsters with razors for hands. Kern is the second ogre nation, located to the north and northeast of Neraka*. Unlike Blöde their soil is poor and mostly inhabited by dry savannah, meaning that they resort to hunting or banditry. There is a set of magical canals of unknown origin with running water that appears out of nowhere, serving as the only reliable patch of farmland in the nation. The ogres’ karsh hounds are famous hunting dogs which serve as their chief export and trade good. Such dogs are being seen in the Dragonarmies in greater numbers ever since the ogre chiefs pledged loyalty to Takhisis. Kern has a few large towns along the coast, although its capital city is nestled in a forest surrounded by mountains. *which itself is filed under the Taman Busuk entry. Interesting places and adventure hooks include badlands inhabited by an intelligent giant scorpion and a red dragon with a legendary hoard guarded by wards and ogre servants, a newly-risen temple of the god Kiri-Jolith in the middle of the savannah, and the Dancing Woods which is home to centaurs and fey creatures who ironically are the major resistance to the Dragonarmies in the region. Kharolis is located at the southwest extremity of the continent of Ansalon proper. Once an Ergothian vassal state, its people broke free as the Cataclysm sent much of said empire beneath the waves.* The people were so proud of what they had won that not even the encroaching permafrost of Icereach or the various goblin and thanoi raiders could make them flee their settlements. It is a diverse place, home to hill dwarf clans, elven diaspora using the country as a waystation in heading for Southern Ergoth, and wizards from all over Ansalon heading to take the Test at the Tower of High Sorcery of Wayreth. *although they fared better than Istar. In close proximity to the Forest of Wayreth, Kharolis is also notable for being one of the only nations on Ansalon which has a positive attitude towards wizards. The good-aligned Order of White Robes repeatedly lent their aid in repelling monstrous invaders and help find ways for the inhabitants to survive in the cold, harsh climate. This has earned them the trust of the common folk, although many town leaders are wary of a “wizard coup.” Said nation also has close ties to the city of Tarsis, which has seen better days since the Cataclysm landlocked this once-grand port. There’s an interesting error in the important sites entry. A druidic cult of Morgion, evil god of rot and disease, hatched an evil plot to spread disease in the Firecrab Hills a mere 10 years after the Cataclysm. But in Dragonlance lore the evil gods first came back to Krynn in 141 AC. Before this period no divine magic, not even that of the evil gods, could be learned or practiced on Krynn. Other interesting sites and adventure hooks include a once-pure magical well whose waters turned brackish from a tentacled beast now living in it, a rogue fire elemental in Wayreth which ends up killing a villager and puts the wizards in some hot water, and a hill dwarf sage who claims to know the location of a pre-Cataclysm weapons cache.  Khur is an arid region so named after the most powerful tribe in the area, although there are various other tribes with a common language and culture native to the region. Although technically grouped as “nomadic humans” in the setting, the tribes of Khur live both as wandering bands and have their own large cities. The tribes have a complicated history of various alliances and rivalries; when the head of the Khur tribe Salah-Khan claimed the title of Green Dragon Highlord, he used the might of the occupying Dragonarmies to violently suppress other tribes and elevate his own. He was successful for a time, but the losses of his forces during the Silvanesti Campaign helped inspire multiple local uprisings. Although the Dragonarmies have numbers, dragons, and magic on their side, the rebel tribes can live a subsistence life in the desert and so far managed to stay ahead of the patrols. quote:The loss of the gods did not demand a major adjustment from the Khur. Having a unique outlook on the pantheon, the Khur assume their gods still protect them, and that it was the gods of the Kingpriest and his people that disappeared in the Cataclysm. The gods of outsiders are usually thought of as false gods. The healers of Khur, the Daughters of Elir-sana, have noticed that their goddess has elected to make the people of Khur rely more on natural healing methods since the Drowning. If that is the wish of their goddess, then they shall abide by it. The Seers of Delphon find that visions are not as easy to see as before, and it takes much more time and patience to come up with accurate readings, but they do not doubt their gods’ existence. The People Didn’t Leave the Gods, The Gods Left the People Counter: 5 The tribes of Khur* are Dragonlance’s fantasy counterpart Arab culture. All but two of their cities have the prefix Ak- which I believe is a fancy spin on Al- which is more or less the Arab world for “the.” Cities of Dragonarmy-allied tribes such Khuri-Khan get favorable economic trade opportunities, while the cities of the Khur tribe’s enemies such as Alan Ak-Khan are under military occupation and the citizens are treated harshly. *also known as the Khur people even for the non-Khur tribes, it’s complicated. Interesting sites and adventure hooks include the Seers of the city of Delphon identifying the PCs as heralds of the region’s freedom...which quickly spreads among the public and has the Green Dragonarmy declare a manhunt for said PCs; the Dragonarmies finding ways to direct locust swarms to menace disloyal villages; a newly formed cult of Chemosh known as the Soul Traders who promise magical means of immortality without telling their recipients under which god they’re now bound; and the ever-hot Burning Lands which is said to hold a chunk of the fiery mountain that struck Istar deep within its reaches. Lemish is a heavily-forested nation and mortal enemy of Solamnia. Although smaller than its rival, the nobility of Lemish are on the other side of Kayolin and their proximity to the hobgoblin nation of Throt means that most invasions by the Knights rarely last long. The enmity stems from Lemish having prior ties to Ergoth and more or less becoming a Solamnic province once that empire fell into decline. Lemish’s local nobility had no desires on being beholden to protecting their commoners in the “enlightened feudalism” way the Knights of Solamnia did, and violently resisted any attempts to enforce the Oath and the Measure.* And even when Solamnia won, Lemish’s distance prevented said commoners from being adequately protected, so soon both social classes hated the Knights. *the Solamnic Knights’ moral code. Although traditionally wary of Neraka, they eagerly allied with the Dragon Empire upon realization that this mighty civilization would dearly harm their hated enemy in a way their forces could never do. As a result, Lemish has seen an explosion in the draconian and foreign soldier populations. Most of the country’s towns remain rough and tumble hives of scum and villainy, where heavy-handed nobles and thieves’ guilds run the show and slavery is an all-too-common method of punishment. The place is quite diverse, including some elves living in a border town which has enough Solamnic influence that they and knights will not be arrested on the spot, a hobgoblin ruled city which is no more different (or corrupt) than the human population centers, and even a small village of kender who are regarded as wild by their cousins in Hylo for choosing to live in such a dangerous country. Interesting sites and adventure hooks include a hobgoblin tribe in a stretch of wood who percularly act as the forest’s protectors in an almost druidic-like fashion, an immortal being known as Lord Wilderness who puts travelers through tests for the honor of entering his forest, kender asking the PCs to track down a sivak assassin masquerading as one of their murdered townsfolk’s identities, and a band of Kagonesti elves who ask for the PCs’ assistance in rescuing an imprisoned Solamnic knight. Thoughts So Far: The first half of the countries/regions in this chapter are nice and diverse both in local feel and adventuring opportunities. The fact that a lot of the latter do not necessarily tie into the main plot of the Dragonlance Chronicles makes it easy to run games outside the setting’s main adventure path which is a huge plus. I particularly like how the more inhospitable/evil realms have an explanation in “what do they eat” with rice fields and magical canals in the ogre kingdoms or the dwarves having above-ground communities and trade relations with neighboring humans. The only major flaw of this chapter is the fact that there are a near-dozen examples of civilizations or prominent individuals maintaining faith in the gods post-Cataclysm. One could easily ask why Langtree’s “Mad Baron” who is the best thing Blöde has to a Lawful Good ruler has not been gifted with divine insight like Goldmoon has. Join us next time as we finish off the rest of this chapter! Libertad! fucked around with this message at 10:43 on Jan 4, 2020 |
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Jan 4, 2020 00:50
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The more Dragonlance lore that comes out the more I want a setting where worshipping any of the Good or Evil gods is illegal for causing too many wars. (Maybe some big placation festivals, but no churches/preaching/admittedly to being a cleric of them). Obviously they'd still have cults.
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Jan 4, 2020 01:57
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Tylana posted:The more Dragonlance lore that comes out the more I want a setting where worshipping any of the Good or Evil gods is illegal for causing too many wars. (Maybe some big placation festivals, but no churches/preaching/admittedly to being a cleric of them). Obviously they'd still have cults. For all Golarion's problems, Paizo occasionally has an interesting idea. One of those is Rahadoum. After a series of destructive religious wars between the priests of Nethys (true neutral god of magic, insane because he can see everything), Norgorber (neutral evil god of secrets, thievery and assassination) and Sarenrae (neutral good goddess of the sun, redemption and healing), a nation rose in that region that had developed a philosophical code, the Laws of Mortality. The First Law is 'Let no mortal be beholden to a god'. Rahadoum knows the gods exist, they just don't want anything to do with them because they're all trouble. Worship is banned and actually being a cleric gets you exiled (or killed if you were proselytizing). Rahadoum's leaders aren't evil - the Council of Elders trend LN, but they are extremely strict about the First Law. I played a Rahadoumi philosopher in a campaign and I had a lot of fun being anti-theist.
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Jan 4, 2020 02:05
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I don't get why D&D proposes societies that people only worship one god out of a pantheon. Why wouldn't it be more like real world polytheism where you worship the whole pantheon based on occasion, and mystery cult priests dedicated to one god or people who have a single god as a special patron are specialties rather than the norm?
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Jan 4, 2020 02:11
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Because they aren't gods in the real-world sense, they're more like Cold War superpowers.
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Jan 4, 2020 02:15
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Terrible Opinions posted:I don't get why D&D proposes societies that people only worship one god out of a pantheon. Why wouldn't it be more like real world polytheism where you worship the whole pantheon based on occasion, and mystery cult priests dedicated to one god or people who have a single god as a special patron are specialties rather than the norm? I remember Eberron being good on that point where it was explicitly mentioned that people prayed to whatever god they needed at the moment to help them.
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Jan 4, 2020 02:15
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like, yes, real world pantheism doesn't work that way, but we don't have divinely empowered paladins or priests who can work reproducible, weaponized miracles either D&D gods are also typically powered by their believers' faith, which is a good material reason not to share worshipers
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Jan 4, 2020 02:17
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So who was patient zero for the entire "what if gods... gained power... FROM THEIR WORSHIPPERS" idea, anyway? Who is the son of a bitch who invented Comic Sans?
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Jan 4, 2020 02:23
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Also it's important to remember that from the context of people living in ancient polytheist societies they actually did think the rites and things had real power and were actually very important.
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Jan 4, 2020 02:25
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another practical reason is that, functionally speaking, real life pantheism frequently represented an attempt to unify the individual gods or smaller pantheons of different people who were conquered, assimilated, etc. into a common (or at least overlapping) framework realistically imitating this wouldn't mean having people worship all the gods of a D&D campaign setting equally, it would mean that every kingdom has its own semi-exclusive pantheon that shifts and expands in tandem with mortal politics ... except a) that makes absolutely no sense if the gods literally exist and are the instigators, rather than the result, of mortal culture and politics and b) it would multiply the amount of work you'd have to do for what is ultimately just background fluff in actual play, most of the time
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Jan 4, 2020 02:25
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Cooked Auto posted:I remember Eberron being good on that point where it was explicitly mentioned that people prayed to whatever god they needed at the moment to help them. The Midgard campaign setting, in its various system incarnations, is a pretty good subversion of this. It's possible to be a "one god, one priest" type of cleric, but having the gods of the pantheon share their powers with individual clerics so that mortals can venerate the entire pantheon is the best attempt I've seen at a D&D setting doing a pantheist priest.
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Jan 4, 2020 02:26
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Tuxedo Catfish posted:another practical reason is that, functionally speaking, real life pantheism frequently represented an attempt to unify the individual gods or smaller pantheons of different people who were conquered, assimilated, etc. into a common (or at least overlapping) framework
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Jan 4, 2020 02:29
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Nessus posted:So who was patient zero for the entire "what if gods... gained power... FROM THEIR WORSHIPPERS" idea, anyway? Who is the son of a bitch who invented Comic Sans? Lord Dunsany is, if not the original, at least a good place to start digging
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Jan 4, 2020 02:29
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Nessus posted:So who was patient zero for the entire "what if gods... gained power... FROM THEIR WORSHIPPERS" idea, anyway? Who is the son of a bitch who invented Comic Sans? It's even present in the Bible Exodus 29:18 "Then burn the entire ram on the altar. It is a burnt offering to the Lord, a pleasing aroma, a food offering presented to the Lord."
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Jan 4, 2020 02:34
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Part of the issue with dragonlance isn’t the good vs evil axis, it’s that they didn’t consider Law vs Chaos. Most of the gods consider the Law as paramount and keep it way too tied to the idea of Goodness. The kingpriest got to stay so long because he followed the Rules, and the gods made a massive inflexible judgement afterwards that they couldn’t easily work around, aside from the Chaotic Evil tahksis. It’s pretty similar to the forgotten realms with Ao but without the gods working around the rulings a bunch.
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Jan 4, 2020 02:34
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that's a pretty unorthodox reading of Exodus at best, Christian and Jewish theology are both fairly clear on God being fundamentally prior to existence and not dependent on or subject to anything apart from himself
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Jan 4, 2020 02:39
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Yeah I don't mean the idea that gods could have ebbs or flows in power or get their asses kicked by bigger gods, I mean the specific idea of "mortal worshippers = god power points," which is deeply baked into a lot of RPGs and also sucks. Or I guess more accurately it's really limiting.
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Jan 4, 2020 02:42
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Yes it is and I'm not arguing that Christianity or modern day Judaism believe that God is dependent on humans, but rather that the idea of humans providing food to deities through ritual is present. Even if the deity in question does not need to to survive. The passage I quoted is the New International version, but food for good through sacrifice is present in most translations of both Exodus 29:18 and Exodus 29:25. Here's a link if you're curious. This was also a commonly held belief among other religions of the Levant, Anatolia, and Greece, with Exodus just providing a specific example. It isn't a far logical leap in a setting with gods that aren't all powerful to go from sacrifices and worship rituals being food to worship giving the gods power directly.
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Jan 4, 2020 02:45
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I feel like gods appreciate the aroma of good bbq even if they aren’t hungry.
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Jan 4, 2020 02:47
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