Articles and discussion on Roleplaying including Shadow World, Forgotten Realms.
When I was writing “Priest-King” a few years back, I ended up locating the module in SW Agyra and started fleshing out the geographic area. The land to the immediate south was Chaal-chu and in Terry’s description (Master Atlas p.34) was this fascinating tidbit: In an (apparently) unique and frightening aberration, there are Half-elven Eritari …
Continue reading “Turning Tropes Upside Down: Feral Elves and other thoughts.”
RMU has established a tool kit that balances out race, class and creature creation by assigning DP values to skills, abilities and attributes. It’s very detailed and typical RM! A currently running thread on the RM Forums is about Race balance, and more specifically Elves. We discussed Elves here on the RolemasterBlog, and it’s also …
Continue reading “Elves, Elves, Everywhere! Elves in Shadow World and fiction.”
I’m not a fan of Elves, but I am a fan of Shadow World. Can those two feelings co-exist? Fiction has exposed us to many portrayals of Elves but one constant is that Elves are very long lived or immortal. In a past RMU discussion, the immortal “trait” was discussed: how do you subscribe a …
In the Forgotten Realms there are five races of elf, High, Grey (or Moon), Green (or Wood), Sea and Drow Elves. For most people I guess the High, Grey and Green equate pretty much with Moldar, Sindar and Silvan. For the purposes of this discussion I am going to ignore the Sea Elves as they …
Continue reading “How Drow Elves compare to other elven races”
Please note that some of these files may be here on the Rolemasterblog, but to access these links to the RM Forums will require a Forum account–otherwise you cannot see or access. Here we go:
While it’s easy to think of a new era of history (real or fantasy) as a distinct and specific time or year, it’s usually in hindsight that we view the end of one epoch and the start of another as a demising event. In reality, such times are more muddled and gray, with the facts …
For me, it’s very clear that any new version of Shadow World should be distinct and new and just more of the same. Personally, I’d be fine continuing to write Shadow World material under Terry’s established work, but two factors require a differing approach: ICE’s reluctance to open up Shadow World to third parties and …
As I continue to fill in the foundation of my 4th Age of Shadow World, I’m debating a balance between retaining core elements of Shadow World or “upsetting the apple cart” and making some broader changes to the setting. As a long term SW user I’m of two minds but ultimately shaking things up seems …
In fantasy fiction it’s not unusual for an age of conflict and strife to end with a resolution and new hopeful future. LOTR, WoT and even the predicted Shadow World storyline implies a new age of prosperity. That’s a natural story arc. Unfortunately, conflict is and challenges are a necessary ingredient for roleplaying adventures! A …
There has been some discussion about resetting the Shadow World setting with the start of the “4th Era”. The purpose is two fold: first, to respect the canon work that Terry has built and second to create a starting point for new Shadow World material with a clean slate (more or less). There is no …