Dawn War Campaign Setting Publication

[Kevingway]

It seems odd to me that 5e introduces the Dawn War pantheon without its native 4e setting. Granted, I never played 4e, so I have little-to-no knowledge of anything to do with the relative backstories of these deities or the world they oversee, so I was wondering two things:

1. What's the best single source for learning more about how the gods of this pantheon interact with each other?

2. Would the OGL from either edition cover the use of this pantheon/their native world in a self- written and published campaign setting/adventure for 5e?

I love running my own personal campaign using this pantheon, but I do so in my own world. I'd love to one day run the adventure in its native campaign world, but I don't know enough yet to say exactly how that would work. Any help is greatly appreciated!

[JackPhoenix]

It seems odd to me that 5e introduces the Dawn War pantheon without its native 4e setting. Granted, I never played 4e, so I have little-to-no knowledge of anything to do with the relative backstories of these deities or the world they oversee, so I was wondering two things:

1. What's the best single source for learning more about how the gods of this pantheon interact with each other?

2. Would the OGL from either edition cover the use of this pantheon/their native world in a self- written and published campaign setting/adventure for 5e?

I love running my own personal campaign using this pantheon, but I do so in my own world. I'd love to one day run the adventure in its native campaign world, but I don't know enough yet to say exactly how that would work. Any help is greatly appreciated!

I haven't played much 4e (I hate the system), only read some of the books, so take my words with grain of salt, however:

1. I don't think there's any single source...PoL/Elsir Vale didn't get its setting book, but the informations are spread through the 4e splatbooks and Dragon Magazine.

2. I don't know if there even IS OGL for 4e, however, you can only publish Forgotten Realms or setting independent adventures for 5e (and I think you have to go through DM's Guild), you may want to check out on the exact rules yourself, it's both on WotC and DM's Guild websites

[Millstone85]

5e also briefly describes the World Axis, which was the cosmology used by 4e and particularly relevant to its default setting.

[Kevingway]

I haven't played much 4e (I hate the system), only read some of the books, so take my words with grain of salt, however:

1. I don't think there's any single source...PoL/Elsir Vale didn't get its setting book, but the informations are spread through the 4e splatbooks and Dragon Magazine.

2. I don't know if there even IS OGL for 4e, however, you can only publish Forgotten Realms or setting independent adventures for 5e (and I think you have to go through DM's Guild), you may want to check out on the exact rules yourself, it's both on WotC and DM's Guild websites

Third parties can still independently publish, but DMs Guild is the easy way to do it.

[Stray]

2. Would the OGL from either edition cover the use of this pantheon/their native world in a self- written and published campaign setting/adventure for 5e?


As mentioned earlier 4th edition didn't have OGL (only much more restrictive licensing), and Dawn War pantheon isn't actually included in 5th edition's SRD (it's in Basic D&D but they are not the same thing), so I don't think it could be used in material published under OGL.

And DM Guild gives access to Forgotten Realms IP only at this time, so no luck there.

Edit: I was wrong, Dawn War pantheon isn't even in Basic

[UrsusArctos]

4E never really explicitly went over it's setting, only giving it in bits an pieces.

The Points of Light Wiki (http://http://tahlequahpointsoflight.wikia.com/wiki/D%26D:_Points_of_LIght_Wiki) takes all the info and puts it into one spot.

[Mcdt2]

I'm not familiar at all with this so-called "Dawn War" pantheon nor have I seen any sign in the books of them, can you give a list of names? As far as I've seen, all the deities mentioned in 5e material all came from one of the established settings such as Greyhawk, Forgotten Realms, Dragonlance, or Eberron, or are from historical pantheons such as the Greek or Egyptian.

Disclaimer: I ignored most of 4e's fluff, because what I have seen has been almost universally terrible.

[Kevingway]

I'm not familiar at all with this so-called "Dawn War" pantheon nor have I seen any sign in the books of them, can you give a list of names? As far as I've seen, all the deities mentioned in 5e material all came from one of the established settings such as Greyhawk, Forgotten Realms, Dragonlance, or Eberron, or are from historical pantheons such as the Greek or Egyptian.

Disclaimer: I ignored most of 4e's fluff, because what I have seen has been almost universally terrible.

Dungeon Master's Guide has a mish-mash of mashed potatoes called the Dawn War Pantheon; features most of your typical gods, such as Vecna or Asmodeus, but then sprinkles in some new like the Raven Queen. It's meant to be the pantheon of pick-and-choose for those who don't want to play in a 100% established world, if that makes sense.

[Millstone85]

Dawn War deities got a table on page 10 of the 5e DMG. The next page describes the pantheon as such:The pantheon of the Dawn War is an example of a pantheon assembled from mostly preexisting elements to suit the needs of a particular campaign. This is the default pantheon in the fourth edition Player's Handbook (2008). The pantheon is summarized in the Dawn War Deities table.

This pantheon draws in several nonhuman deities and establishes them as universal gods. These gods include Bahamut, Corellon, Gruumsh, Lolth, Moradin, Sehanine, and Tiamat. Humans worship Moradin and Corellon as gods of their respective portfolios, rather than as racial deities. The pantheon also includes the archdevil Asmodeus as god of domination and tyranny.

Several of the gods are drawn from other pantheons, sometimes with new names for the gods. Bane comes from the Forgotten Realms. From Greyhawk come Kord, Pelor, Tharizdun, and Vecna. From the Greek pantheon come Athena (renamed Erathis) and Tyche (renamed Avandra), though both are altered. Set (renamed Zehir) comes from the Egyptian pantheon. The Raven Queen is akin to the Norse pantheon's Hel and Greyhawk's Weejas. That leaves three gods created from scratch: Ioun, Melora, and Torog.Of note is that although the default 4e setting stole names and concepts from other settings, the gods of the Dawn War were always distinct from their namesakes. For example, the 4e PHB's Corellon was unaligned when the 4e FRPG's Corellon was of good alignment. I also remember this bit from Dragon#372:The Bane of the core D&D setting is not the same god as the Bane of the Forgotten Realms setting! Oh, there's substantial conceptual overlap (The matching names probably clued you on that.) They serve roughly the same purpose in the pantheons, their religious precepts have a great deal in common, and they make use of similar tactics and servitors.

Yet their differences are many as well, especially in terms of personal history, behavior, and even appearance. All that follows describes the core Bane, and it shouldn't necessarily apply to the Bane of Faerûn.I can't say that I like the mentality that seems to have presided to the creation of this setting. As a new D&D player at the time, and until I read this particular issue of Dragon Magazine, I was horrendously confused.

By the way, the Forgotten Realms also had an event called "the Dawn War". I guess it was done so certain game options would have a place in them. But mostly, it added to the confusion.

[randomodo]

If what you're mostly interested in is the specific pantheon attached to the Dawn War/4th Ed/Points of Light setting, then this won't work for you.

But if what appeals to you is the notion of a young realm with new gods, barely controlled/semi-defeated primordial titans, and a world that could be on the bring of either renaissance or ruin, then consider the old Scarred Lands setting. It was published for 3rd Edition, but it's quite easily translatable into 5th Edition.

The basic gist of it is that it's roughly a century after the Divine War, in which a small pantheon of gods and demigods (one major god for each of the eight alignments, plus a neutral Titan who switched sides during the war) defeated the primordial titans. They are defeated, but not dead (one is chained to the bottom of the sea with his heart ripped out, which created the Blood Sea on the east side of the main continent; another was torn to pieces and scattered, but her serpentman followers seek to reunite the pieces to recreate their patron and gain revenge; etc).

So you've got a small manageable pantheon of gods, each with a distinct flavor, a few demigods of note, and the power of the titans still reverberates throughout the land. The war, after all, ended within living memory of the longer-lived races (elves, dwarves, and the serpentmen followers of one of the titans, for example). And the titanspawn have long memories.

Tons of interesting locations:
- Hollowfaust: a city run by neutral necromancers, who use undead for manual labor and to defend the city without putting the lives of citizens at risk.
- Mithril: a city run by paladins and the seat of the church of the LG god. Surprisingly non-boring sourcebook for a LG location with a lot of behind the scenes corruption.
- "Some country the name of which escapes me because I haven't run a game in this setting for 12 years": A lawful evil imperialistic nation whose citizens are generally proud of it. ("No wandering monsters here, unlike your anarchistic 'kingdoms' that are barely worthy of the name! And the food wagons run on time, yessiree.")

Anyway, probably easily findable at used bookstores, or ebay, or drivethrurpg or wherever.

May or may not scratch your itch, but there's my 2 cp.

[Millstone85]

Oh great, so the general focus on scattered pockets of civilization and the aftermath of a god/titan conflict was also lifted from a previous D&D setting. :smallannoyed:

What about the third side of the Dawn War? The origin and role of the nature spirits are something I really liked about default 4e lore, to the point where I was annoyed that 4e FR replaced that part with Ao splitting the planet into the twin worlds of Abeir and Toril.

[Alegast]

Well, there are a lot of differences between Nentir Vale and Scarred Lands. The Dawn War for example, happened thousands of years before the intended starting point of the campaign. The effects of that war in the world still persists, but not as stronger as they were in the past.

The general focus on scattered pockets of civilization is because the Empire of Nerath, the last great human empire, fell one hundred years before the campaign began. The peoples of former Nerath were caught in a troubled time, left for themselves in land full of monsters and enemies, but there are still other empires and nations in the world, like the Iron Circle, the Empire of Karkoth and the Vailin Alliance (that debuted in the Conquest of Nerath tabletop game. Karkoth is the setting of the D&D: Book of Vile Darkness movie). Some of the Nerathi nobles still hold many of the power and influence they had in the form of the Nerathan League (again, from the aforementioned game), thought the League isn't powerful enough to fight the both Iron Circle or the Karkhoti armies and relies on the help on the Vailin Alliance.

If you what to know about the setting, a single sourcebook wouldn't be enough. However, much of the info about the Nentir Vale is divided into the first 4e DMG and the Monster Vale: Threats of the Nentir Vale books. The latter is enough to give you ideas for a sandbox in the Nentir Vale.

If you want to know only about the gods, Divine Power and Astral Sea: Secrets of the Plane Above books have most of the information that exists about the gods of the Dawn War.

But as mentioned before, there is no OGL for the Nentir Vale/Dawn War setting, and the 4e GSL is very restrictive.

If you really want to know about the Dawn War setting, here is a fan compilation about most (not all, sadly) of the history of the Nerath world: http://www.mediafire.com/view/x5v9i6jgvro45b3/Timeline_of_PoL.docx