#forgottenrealms

#WritersCoffeeClub 8 May. Give an example of a project you’ve had to give up on.

Well, that requires some explanation.

Back in the early 1990s, TSR was on a "National Geographic" trip and produced a number of expansions for their #ForgottenRealms setting for #DnD which were basically fantasy counterpart cultures to real world cultures.

#Maztica , based on Mesoamerican cultures, was arguably the worst of these. The initial premise was basically a fantasy replay of Cortez' conquests of the #Aztec Empire, and it went worse from there - the locals basically had little agency of their own, their magic and technology was weaker than that of the "Mighty Whitey" invaders, and so forth.

My concept was to use the massive time skip between the 2E and the 5E version of the Realms to update the setting to a modern, postcolonial area, and give the locals their dignity back and make them the heroes of their own stories, instead of local color for explorers from mainland Faerun.

I did a lot of concept work I am still proud of and wanted to publish something on the Dungeon Master's Guild. But in the end, I wasn't sure that the original settings deserved being redone in that manner - and as a white European, I am probably not the best person to do it.

#ttrpg #Mesoamerica #representation

Of all the #DnD expansions to the #ForgottenRealms during TSR's "let's slap real world cultures into this world", al-Qadim was the best by far.

Part of the reason was that the player characters were assumed to be locals by default, instead of portraying the region as something to be "conquered" by player characters from the Heartlands of Faerun. #ttrpg

Lhestyn's Court was an alleyway in Waterdeep notorious as a discreet killing ground where unscrupulous nobles could dispose of "problems"… which would explain why it was haunted by greater shadows.
#dnd #forgottenrealms #Realmslore #WaterdeepWednesday

https://forgottenrealms.fandom.com/wiki/Lhestyn%27s_Court