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View Full Version : Do other campaign settings have the basics of D&D[3.5]



Froogleyboy
2010-06-10, 10:33 AM
Okay, basically, What I'm asking, is do other campaigns have some of the fluff that is in core? Like, for example, do they have the same deities? mainly just stuff like that. thank you

AstralFire
2010-06-10, 10:36 AM
The deities are primarily borrowed from Greyhawk, and a lot of other stuff is regularly borrowed from Forgotten Realms.

Greenish
2010-06-10, 10:50 AM
The deities are primarily borrowed from Greyhawk, and a lot of other stuff is regularly borrowed from Forgotten Realms.That is to say that different settings have different deities.

Froogleyboy
2010-06-10, 05:29 PM
Ah, so in other settings, the Drow don't live underground and worship spiders?

Temotei
2010-06-10, 05:31 PM
Ah, so in other settings, the Drow don't live underground and worship spiders?

Drow generally still live in the dark, but that's probably because of their light blindness and darkvision.

AslanCross
2010-06-10, 05:32 PM
Eberron definitely has different deities, and even a relaxed alignment restriction for clerics. (But not Paladins) And yes, their Drow honor scorpions instead of spiders, live in deep jungles, and are not ruled by BDSM queens.

Eberron's major religions:

The Sovereign Host: Eight different gods who manage different aspects of life. They can be worshiped as a pantheon or individually.

The Dark Six: The mostly evil flip side to the Sovereign Host is made up of six deities who focus on the "shadows" of the Sovereign Host's portfolio. They tend to be more independent than the Host, though.

The Silver Flame: A henotheistic faith that believes its god will be the "final" god of Eberron. They exist to purify the land.

The Blood of Vol: Worships "the divinity within." Kind of like a self-help movement gone really wrong. It is led by an teenage half-dragon elf lich, but nobody really knows that except the clergy.

There are many other cults. The main thread that connects Eberron religions is that the gods rarely directly interfere with matters of mortals, such that apart from the Silver Flame, which is physically present in the Cathedral in Flamekeep, nobody really knows if the other gods exist. The Silver Flame's nature is debatable as well. However, as long as you worship something, you get power from that idea.

That said, most clergy in Eberron don't even have cleric levels. Most are just experts who have appropriate skill ranks to discharge their duties of healing, teaching, and helping people in general. Cleric levels are usually left to high-level champions who perform missions for the church (ie, adventurers or former adventurers).

Dusk Eclipse
2010-06-10, 05:35 PM
Ah, so in other settings, the Drow don't live underground and worship spiders?

AFAIK the only setting in which they differ from that is Eberron, there, drow lives in jungles and worship a male scorpion deity and they are not bat S**** crazy, they are only extremely overprotective of themselfs being former slaves to giants

[Swordsage'd Kinda]

Draz74
2010-06-10, 05:40 PM
AFAIK the only setting in which they differ from that is Eberron, there, drow lives in jungles and worship a male scorpion deity and they are not bat S**** crazy, they are only extremely overprotective of themselfs being former slaves to giants

Nah, I've seen other settings where Drow didn't have the underground/spider thing. You're right that it's pretty "mainstream," though, for all of the major settings besides Eberron (except the ones that don't have drow at all, like Dark Sun).

Eloi
2010-06-10, 05:42 PM
The cosmology of Planescape has become core in regard to planes, and Greyhalk & Core's outlook on Races and Classes are similar, while a lot of Forgotten Realms seeps threw regularly.

Lord Vukodlak
2010-06-10, 05:43 PM
AFAIK the only setting in which they differ from that is Eberron, there, drow lives in jungles and worship a male scorpion deity and they are not bat S**** crazy, they are only extremely overprotective of themselfs being former slaves to giants

[Swordsage'd Kinda]

No their still S**** crazy just in their own way.

Eldan
2010-06-10, 05:45 PM
To expand on that a little: a lot of settings share a thing or two with D&D. Usually, the rarer a thing comes up, the more certain you can be no one bothered to change it's fluff :smallwink:

Forgotten Realms, as an example, has the underdark-living, Lolth-worshiping spider-drow, but totally different gods, and a lot of changed fluff.

Greyhawk is where a lot of the "default" fluff comes from, it's (one of) Gary Gygax's own setting(s). There you have mages such as Mordenkainen, gods such as Vecna and all the artefacts from the DMG.

Then there's Planescape, which mostly runs on "everything is true": all other settings are part of it, so all fluff is true here, for varying degrees of true.

And then there's Eberron, which sometimes feels as if things have been changed for the sake of change. MOst often, it works.

Gnaeus
2010-06-10, 05:51 PM
Nah, I've seen other settings where Drow didn't have the underground/spider thing. You're right that it's pretty "mainstream," though, for all of the major settings besides Eberron (except the ones that don't have drow at all, like Dark Sun).

The Birthright drow still do the spider thing, but they live in a dark forest called the spiderfell, where they are led by a dark elf whose divine bloodline is slowly turning him into a spider.

Kaiyanwang
2010-06-10, 06:32 PM
And then there's Eberron, which sometimes feels as if things have been changed for the sake of change. MOst often, it works.

Even if is not my favourite setting, I don't see it that way. I consider monsters and races like actors, playing roles.

Some actor is versatile, some one else play very similar characters. If you create a new setting, you place every actor you hire in, choosing his roles.

Of course, you cannot have Jessica Alba play the role of King Leonidas. The same way, Dragons will be powerful in every setting, I guess.

But is interesting simply see how things has been changed, how the actors play the new roles.

dariathalon
2010-06-10, 06:36 PM
The Birthright drow still do the spider thing, but they live in a dark forest called the spiderfell, where they are led by a dark elf whose divine bloodline is slowly turning him into a spider.

Actually, the Spiderfell was a primarily goblin realm. The Spider himself was once a goblin.

Drow don't really exist in BR (as far as I'm aware anyway). The closest thing is the colony of evil elves that is run by Rhuobhe Manslayer, another awnsheighlien (sp? - a creature tainted by the dark blood of a dead god).