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Nentir Vale lore pdfs for the uninitiated DM?
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<blockquote data-quote="Zeromaru X" data-source="post: 9109410" data-attributes="member: 65487"><p>The overall idea of the Points of Light setting is that the world is populated by a variety of intelligent races, strange monsters lurk on other planes, ancient empires have left ruins across the face of the world, and so on. But one of the key conceits about this world is simply this: Civilized folk live in small, isolated "points of light" scattered across a big, dark, dangerous world.</p><p></p><p>Most of the world is monster-haunted wilderness. The centers of civilization are few and far between, and the world isn't carved up between nation-states that jealously enforce their borders, so the frontier lands are full of bandits, wild animals and monsters, and there are no authorities to deal with this. The settlements are somehow free of monsters, but are full of intrigue and other threats (like bandit guilds or greedy lords). And this may not be always the case. Since towns and villages do not stay in close contact, it's easy for all sorts of evils to befall a settlement without anyone noticing for a long time.</p><p></p><p>In this kind of world, only adventurers, exceptional individuals that are considered brave heroes by a few and madmen by the rest of the common folk, are the ones who can deal with these threats. There are no Big Name NPCs, so if the adventurers do nothing, the world is doomed. </p><p></p><p>And in some form, this means that the Points of Light world is a dark world. I’m not going to say that is on the same level of “dark” as Dark Sun is, but is a dark world. </p><p></p><p>A literary example of the Points of Light world is the classic Chinese novel Journey to the West that is set in a fictionalized version of the old Buddhist cosmology. For instance, humans are clustered together in walled-off, isolated cities (usually small kingdoms made up of the main city and a few miles around) that are separated from each other by miles and miles of wilderness. And all the lands between cities are infested with all manner of man-eating wild animals and demons, the most powerful of them living in impossible high mountains.</p><p></p><p>The cities themselves are somehow demon-free (with a few exceptions) despite this. Even within the cities, however, there seems to always be a quest of some sort in need of the intervention of the pilgrims (Sun Wukong and company) to solve, usually involving killing something and/or proving the righteousness of Buddhism in some way. </p><p></p><p>In D&D, the prime example of the PoL setting is the Nentir Vale setting. </p><p></p><p>The first thing to take into a account is that the current year of a Nentir Vale campaign starts 100 years after the fall of Nerath, in a point of time between the last great war of the age, that destroyed an empire that controlled all of the known world, and the rise of the next world-spanning power, which might be centuries away. </p><p></p><p>In the Nentir Vale’s World there is no such thing as “The Kingdom”, unlike in the classical D&D worlds. There is no Waterdeep and its Lords’ Alliance, or any other forces with enough power to enforce their laws in the land and that would save the world when the next orc horde attacks or that will maintain in check The Evil Kingdom™, thus allowing for a life of peace and prosperity in the smaller settlements. And if some kind of evil befalls the world, then the people of the Nentir Vale are on their own and usually on the loser’s end. I guess, Raiders of Harkenwold is a good example of this. If not for the player’s characters, Harkenwold would have been unable to deal with the Iron Circle, and possibly the entire Nentir Vale would have been conquered rather easily.</p></blockquote><p></p>
[QUOTE="Zeromaru X, post: 9109410, member: 65487"] The overall idea of the Points of Light setting is that the world is populated by a variety of intelligent races, strange monsters lurk on other planes, ancient empires have left ruins across the face of the world, and so on. But one of the key conceits about this world is simply this: Civilized folk live in small, isolated "points of light" scattered across a big, dark, dangerous world. Most of the world is monster-haunted wilderness. The centers of civilization are few and far between, and the world isn't carved up between nation-states that jealously enforce their borders, so the frontier lands are full of bandits, wild animals and monsters, and there are no authorities to deal with this. The settlements are somehow free of monsters, but are full of intrigue and other threats (like bandit guilds or greedy lords). And this may not be always the case. Since towns and villages do not stay in close contact, it's easy for all sorts of evils to befall a settlement without anyone noticing for a long time. In this kind of world, only adventurers, exceptional individuals that are considered brave heroes by a few and madmen by the rest of the common folk, are the ones who can deal with these threats. There are no Big Name NPCs, so if the adventurers do nothing, the world is doomed. And in some form, this means that the Points of Light world is a dark world. I’m not going to say that is on the same level of “dark” as Dark Sun is, but is a dark world. A literary example of the Points of Light world is the classic Chinese novel Journey to the West that is set in a fictionalized version of the old Buddhist cosmology. For instance, humans are clustered together in walled-off, isolated cities (usually small kingdoms made up of the main city and a few miles around) that are separated from each other by miles and miles of wilderness. And all the lands between cities are infested with all manner of man-eating wild animals and demons, the most powerful of them living in impossible high mountains. The cities themselves are somehow demon-free (with a few exceptions) despite this. Even within the cities, however, there seems to always be a quest of some sort in need of the intervention of the pilgrims (Sun Wukong and company) to solve, usually involving killing something and/or proving the righteousness of Buddhism in some way. In D&D, the prime example of the PoL setting is the Nentir Vale setting. The first thing to take into a account is that the current year of a Nentir Vale campaign starts 100 years after the fall of Nerath, in a point of time between the last great war of the age, that destroyed an empire that controlled all of the known world, and the rise of the next world-spanning power, which might be centuries away. In the Nentir Vale’s World there is no such thing as “The Kingdom”, unlike in the classical D&D worlds. There is no Waterdeep and its Lords’ Alliance, or any other forces with enough power to enforce their laws in the land and that would save the world when the next orc horde attacks or that will maintain in check The Evil Kingdom™, thus allowing for a life of peace and prosperity in the smaller settlements. And if some kind of evil befalls the world, then the people of the Nentir Vale are on their own and usually on the loser’s end. I guess, Raiders of Harkenwold is a good example of this. If not for the player’s characters, Harkenwold would have been unable to deal with the Iron Circle, and possibly the entire Nentir Vale would have been conquered rather easily. [/QUOTE]
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