On the 26th of August, 1346, the forces of Edward III, king of England, stood in a series of columns between the villages of Crecy and Wadicourt, peering down the hills towards Fontaine, where a vast French army was massing to drive the English invaders back to the sea. The French army was enormous; even ignoring the improbable estimates of ancient chroniclers it is plausible the French outnumbered the English by more than two to one. And while many of the French soldiers were hastily-assembled levies of peasants, the core of their army were professionals: the armored men-at-arms that form the iconic centerpiece of modern medieval warfare. These knights were supported by thousands of professional crossbowmen from Genoa: highly trained experts who carried the iconic pavise shields in addition to their deadly mechanical weapons. It was, on paper, one of the finest medieval armies one could amass. It was led not only by King Philip, but his royal ally King John of Bohemi...
Sword-Coast D&D is so dominant that it's not only the assumed setting for all D&D campaigns, it has become the default setting for essentially all western fantasy. When someone wants to break out of the mold they need to open their story with a rape or a brutal beheading; get that Game of Thrones energy on display, otherwise everyone is going to start looking around for kobolds. This isn't a bad thing; I like the Forgotten Realms, I think. It's a fun place full of adventure and bright colors and wizards and curses. I like fantasy. I love it, in fact. But I do sometimes want a different kind of story. One that doesn't slot into the same grooves as thousands of other games. We live in a world of imagination and I want to use it. So every now and then I'll bang together a new world, one utterly distinct from the Sword Coast, with a history and culture and its own monsters and cities and cosmology. And I'll drop my players into it, and-- Look, you know wha...
I have a tendency to start fights. I really don't know why; I have some strong opinions, but most people do, too, and I think I'm much more mild than most. I hate arguing; I always concede to people; I'm pretty damn nice. I really try! I don't think I've ever, EVER picked a fight! And yet, I do somehow seem to start them. Usually I don't really even know why. I saw a post online. Someone wrote a single sentence: Lore that is not actionable is excessive. I paused, unsure if I agreed. It had been reposted by someone I liked enormously! It was agreed to by others! But something was gnawing at me. It's probably the same impulse that causes all the other fight: I wanted to know more and I wasn't sure I agreed. The minutiae aren't important, really. It started a wide-ranging discussion and I think other people started their own threads and soon I saw some of the people who had initially agreed with the post I was questioning make their own defenses. No...
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