Good lore text in 3e sourcebooks?

[TinyMushroom]

I really enjoy the short story "the Pact Primeval" at the start of Fiendish Codex II: Tyrants of the Nine Hells. Are there any other good examples of good texts/myths in 3e sourcebooks?

[Wildstag]

Do you mean specifically 3e or 3.5? Because I'd like to propose the "Origin of Kurtulmak" story in Races of the Dragon as a good bit of lore/myth.

#TEAMKOBOLD

Also in a similar vein is the "Goliath/Elf/Dwarf/etc." phrasebook in the Races series. Even if you don't use them verbatim, the translations still help to make a fun bit of fluff for a scene.

[Malphegor]

Pretty much all the blatantly written by Gwendolyn Kestrel segments of Races of the Dragon. While she is a bit too much into ‘how do these species breed’ for most people’s games to consider for that can be squicky to most, she writes some fascinating lore about sentient creatures on a cultural level, and she has a in-universe focused writing style that makes me wanna read an entire Monster Manual that’s just her work as if it was an in universe bestiary written by scholars in that world.

She is, without a doubt, my favourite 3.5 creator.

[Telonius]

I really enjoy the short story "the Pact Primeval" at the start of Fiendish Codex II: Tyrants of the Nine Hells. Are there any other good examples of good texts/myths in 3e sourcebooks?

Well, I saw the thread title, and was going to post "Pact Primeval." :smallbiggrin:

Sharakim from Races of Destiny always seemed very interesting to me.

[Thrice Dead Cat]

I enjoyed the different sections of Lords of Madness, especially the interaction between mind flayer and aboleth societies.

[Wildstag]

Pretty much all the blatantly written by Gwendolyn Kestrel segments of Races of the Dragon. While she is a bit too much into ‘how do these species breed’ for most people’s games to consider for that can be squicky to most, she writes some fascinating lore about sentient creatures on a cultural level, and she has a in-universe focused writing style that makes me wanna read an entire Monster Manual that’s just her work as if it was an in universe bestiary written by scholars in that world.

She is, without a doubt, my favourite 3.5 creator.

Could you expand on that? As someone that hasn't learned to recognize specific writer's styles, I'd be interested in hearing what aspects were specific people's vision.

Partially I ask this because I absolutely adore the Goliaths from Races of the Stone and have always wanted to ask the creator to what extent they were inspired by Hawaiians when writing that race, since the language of the Goliaths (Gol-Kaa) is nearly identical to that of Hawaiians.

[Psyren]

- Most of the Vestige legends in Tome of Magic are fun vignettes. In fact, pretty much everything in the Binder chapter is gold, e.g. the Order of Seropaenes where a bunch of opposing faiths set aside their differences to stomp out Pact Magic. You can tell that chapter got the most love out of anything in the book, sadly.

- Lords of Madness and Libris Mortis have fascinating stuff on the biology and psychology of aberrations and undead respectively.

- I enjoy "god books" a lot, as they're a wellspring of character concepts. These include Deities & Demigods, Faiths & Pantheons, Faiths of Eberron, Inner Sea Gods, etc.

- I also enjoy "planar books" like Manual of the Planes and Planar Adventures.

[Malphegor]

Could you expand on that? As someone that hasn't learned to recognize specific writer's styles, I'd be interested in hearing what aspects were specific people's vision.


It is a bit of a guess, but there’s a sense I get with some books like Races of the Dragon in particular that the sentence structure and the tone it’s written in kinda, is almost exactly like it is in the Book of Erotic Fantasy except lacking the uh Erotic Fantasy bit. So I assume the bits that feel similar to read are Kestrel when she’s on the main crediting

(another favourite thing about Kestrel is in Rules Compendium she mentions, in a direct attribution to her, playing a Warforged Dragonborn of Bahamut in a sidebar, which is all kinds of awesome)