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I'm finally going to get a start on my project of integrating the larger D&D multiverse into the amazing The Book of the Righteous (BotR) from Green Ronin. In case you missed my previous posts on BotR, it is a complete pantheon of gods and a full cosmological structure. It includes a Great Church that encompasses the worship of all the gods (something missing in other setting religions) as well as heresies, divine and infernal critters, and rules for playing fully-fleshed out clerics. It seriously is one of the best books I've ever bought for D&D.
But there is an issue when it comes to applying BotR to a game setting. BotR gives the origin of several races. Dragons were born out of Kador's fire in the Great War of the Gods. Elves and the Fey are descendants of the Div, the first race to inhabit the world, as are all the genies. Four races were born of fruits hanging from Eliwyn, the Tree of Life: gnomes, dwarfs, halflings, and humans. And that's it. No mention of orcs, giants, or any of the hosts of intelligent species you can find in the Monster Manual or other supplements.
The easiest thing to do is to just insert these species without comment. I seriously doubt any player is going to stop a game session to inquire about the theological implications of the Kuo-toa or to inquire about the creation of the hobgoblins. But I'm the kind of guy who wants to fill in the blanks, and I want to do it in a way that respects the tight pantheon and story structure of the BotR.
The first step is editing. Foes are like seasoning, adding too many spices ruins the experience. Look at the whole span of J.R.R. Tolkein's works and count the actual monster types in them. The count is pretty low. He created amazing works with goblins, orcs, Uruk-hai, giant spiders, a dragon here and there, and a few unique foes like the balrog. This is an important rule: just because it is in an official publication doesn't mean you have to use it. Take for example the Bullywug (MM p35). While an aggressive humanoid frog is interesting, it doesn't fit in my Fantastic Europe setting, so I can ignore it. Dungeon Masters should always strive to avoid the "kitchen sink" approach to foes.
But that still leaves us with any number of classic foes that lie outside the creation stories of the BotR. I'm going to use a shortcut to handle a whole lot of them right now. Most of the monsters classified as humanoid share an origin with humans. Go back to when Eliwyn bore the fruit containing the four Peoples of the Tree. Each fruit has a just-so story explaining why each race is the way it is. For humans, the chaotic goddess of madness and inspiration, Zheenkeef ate the fruit, and it made her quite ill. Morwyn, the goddess of healing, make Zheenkeef vomit up her stomach contents, and all the gods put together what they found there.
No one said being a god was an easy job. This story is used to explain why humans can look so different, but let's take it a step further. Zheenkeef's puke also accounts for many of the humanoid foes, especially the goblin types, the goblins, bugbears, and hobgoblins. I have plans for the orcs and kobolds, so I'm excluding them.
Finally, as I embark on this, I want to state a few goals. I want to make as few changes to the existing BotR story as possible;e. I'm not going to layer on new gods. Instead, I'm going to use things like existing gods having different names, demi-gods in service of the true gods, intercessory figures, and the like. I want to keep BotR as the primary source and to create some moral quandaries. That Hobgoblin army is made up of children of the Tree, just like your forces, In the eyes of the Great Church, do elves, being descendants of the Div, have souls? I'll be playing with these themes.
First up, by popular request. . . An ancient act of cowardice being paid for today. The dragons in your basement, the cursed of Tiamat, the kobolds.
But there is an issue when it comes to applying BotR to a game setting. BotR gives the origin of several races. Dragons were born out of Kador's fire in the Great War of the Gods. Elves and the Fey are descendants of the Div, the first race to inhabit the world, as are all the genies. Four races were born of fruits hanging from Eliwyn, the Tree of Life: gnomes, dwarfs, halflings, and humans. And that's it. No mention of orcs, giants, or any of the hosts of intelligent species you can find in the Monster Manual or other supplements.
The easiest thing to do is to just insert these species without comment. I seriously doubt any player is going to stop a game session to inquire about the theological implications of the Kuo-toa or to inquire about the creation of the hobgoblins. But I'm the kind of guy who wants to fill in the blanks, and I want to do it in a way that respects the tight pantheon and story structure of the BotR.
The first step is editing. Foes are like seasoning, adding too many spices ruins the experience. Look at the whole span of J.R.R. Tolkein's works and count the actual monster types in them. The count is pretty low. He created amazing works with goblins, orcs, Uruk-hai, giant spiders, a dragon here and there, and a few unique foes like the balrog. This is an important rule: just because it is in an official publication doesn't mean you have to use it. Take for example the Bullywug (MM p35). While an aggressive humanoid frog is interesting, it doesn't fit in my Fantastic Europe setting, so I can ignore it. Dungeon Masters should always strive to avoid the "kitchen sink" approach to foes.
But that still leaves us with any number of classic foes that lie outside the creation stories of the BotR. I'm going to use a shortcut to handle a whole lot of them right now. Most of the monsters classified as humanoid share an origin with humans. Go back to when Eliwyn bore the fruit containing the four Peoples of the Tree. Each fruit has a just-so story explaining why each race is the way it is. For humans, the chaotic goddess of madness and inspiration, Zheenkeef ate the fruit, and it made her quite ill. Morwyn, the goddess of healing, make Zheenkeef vomit up her stomach contents, and all the gods put together what they found there.
No one said being a god was an easy job. This story is used to explain why humans can look so different, but let's take it a step further. Zheenkeef's puke also accounts for many of the humanoid foes, especially the goblin types, the goblins, bugbears, and hobgoblins. I have plans for the orcs and kobolds, so I'm excluding them.
Finally, as I embark on this, I want to state a few goals. I want to make as few changes to the existing BotR story as possible;e. I'm not going to layer on new gods. Instead, I'm going to use things like existing gods having different names, demi-gods in service of the true gods, intercessory figures, and the like. I want to keep BotR as the primary source and to create some moral quandaries. That Hobgoblin army is made up of children of the Tree, just like your forces, In the eyes of the Great Church, do elves, being descendants of the Div, have souls? I'll be playing with these themes.
First up, by popular request. . . An ancient act of cowardice being paid for today. The dragons in your basement, the cursed of Tiamat, the kobolds.
