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Lorraine Williams

2019-08-21T16:28:28Z

2602:306:B88B:FB60:3873:4D54:3721:6C86: /* What was the damage? */

A bitch who thought she was better than us. Responsible for destroying [[TSR Games]].

A fine example of executive arrogance and incompetence, '''Lorraine Williams''' was the person who ended up running D&D after Gary Gygax, like many artists, proved to be a less-than-perfect businessman. She hated her nerdy customers, though not, perhaps, as much as they hated her, and it all managed to drive the most popular and famous role-playing game in the world into another company's hands.

== How'd she get so much power anyways? ==
Kind of [[Gary Gygax]]'s fault, mostly the Blume Brothers' fault. TSR was truckin' along in the early 80's, things were looking up enough that Gary hopped out to California to oversee licensing on the Dungeons & Dragons brand for the saturday morning cartoon, and drum up some support for producing a movie, and get away from running a company so he could write more books. There he met Flint Dille. Dille and Gygax wrote some choose-your-own-adventure books together.

Meanwhile, Gary left TSR in the hands of Kevin and Brian Blume, who mismanaged the place to the tune of $1.5 million in debt. When Gygax found out that the Blumes were looking for someone to buy out TSR so they could pay off the debts, Gary was "fuck that shit" and hopped the next plane to Lake Geneva.

After a look at the books, and how Blume & gang were running the place into the ground, he asked his writing buddy Flint Dille to help out. Well, Flint was more of a writer, but his sister was really business savvy and might want to invest. She said no, but she had plenty of experience in running a company, and could help her brother's buddy to get the business back on its feet.

Flint's sister was Lorraine Dille-Williams... who, it turns out, thought gamers were pathetic losers and D&D was anti-Christian.

Gary told the Blumes and their herp-derp buddies to take a hike. In a clear-as-day act of retaliation, Blume & co. sold all their shares to Lorraine to make HER the majority shareholder instead of Gygax. Gary was all "wait, what?" and tried to void the sale, but it was too late. Lorraine was bwa-ha-ha-ing about how Gygax was a gamer, Gary was "fuck this shit, I don't have to work alongside this bitch," sold the rest of his stock and left TSR in 1985.

== What was the damage? ==
* Lorraine went on to sue Gygax and publishers who tried to print Gygax's new role-playing stuff, making sure that Gary's career would be stopped at every turn.
* She removed any references to "Christian-hostile" ideas in sourcebooks, renaming devils to [[Baatezu]], among other things (this would prove to be the least harmful, if at all, thing she did since it replaces the public domain "devils" with the trademark-friendly Baatezu)
* D&D, the flagship product, had to be remade, thus was born [[AD%26D#AD.26D_2nd_Edition|2nd Edition]]. This was to stop Gary from getting any more royalties from the sale of D&D products originally designed by him.
* She forbade TSR employees from playtesting their work, or as she called it, "Playing games on company time." What the fucking fuck.
* She railroaded Buck Rogers stuff through TSR because her fortune was based on inheriting the license from her grandpaw.
* She gave an executive order to make a [[Spelljammer|sci-fi setting for Dungeons & Dragons]]... but it had to be done NOW, so no playtesting before taking it to the printers. The authors knew it was doomed to fail, so they went off the deep-end with ridiculous shit and everything went better than expected. Although it got no love at first, it did get some updates in [[Lords of Madness|one of the 3.5e supplements]], when a Spelljammer ship crashed into the campaign setting and some [[neogi]] pop out to raid, trade, and be raided. So there's that.
* She saw the money that Wizards was making for [[Magic: The Gathering]] and said TSR had to get a piece of that pie, so she pushed out a forgettable collectible card game and the Dragon Dice products... and made far more than the distributors could sell, costing millions of dollars in returns from distributors.
* Under her watch, TSR increased their novel publishing tenfold... which also undersold in record numbers and cost money to be sent back.
* In 1996, eleven years after she took over, she sold TSR to [[Wizards of the Coast]].

The horror...

[[Category:Publishers]]

Forgotten Realms

2019-08-21T16:23:34Z

2602:306:B88B:FB60:3873:4D54:3721:6C86: /* Forgotten Realms And Sex */

[[Image:3EFRlogo.gif|center]]
'''Forgotten Realms''' is an official [[Dungeons & Dragons Campaign Settings|Dungeons and Dragons campaign setting]] created by [[Ed Greenwood]] circa 1967 for his little stories, but was not part of the official [[Wizards of the Coast]] lineup until 1987 and has since been supported by WotC through all five editions of the game. The setting is supported by hundreds of novels' worth of lore by dozens of authors.

==Setting==
[[File:Toril-3e.jpg|thumb|right|400px|]]
Set on the planet Abeir-Toril, most of the Forgotten Realms source material focuses on the continent Faerûn. Faerûn is pretty similar to pre-industrial Europe, with the exceptions of all of that crazy fantasy stuff. There is a plethora of nations, kingdoms, organizations, deities, and fully fleshed out NPCs who are ripe with political intrigue and conflict. There is absolutely nothing on Toril that has not been fully fleshed out, so there is very, very little room for your own stuff.

Even WoTC thought that this had gotten really out of hand: when 4th edition rolled along, they decided to give the place a reboot. Hey, the Time of Troubles worked for the 1e-to-2e shift, right? They came up with the idea of "the Spellplague": killing Mystara off through the machinations of her long-time enemy Cyric and triggering another massive magical upheaval, similar to the one that had ended the Age of Magic when Mystryl had been killed off. They then skipped time forward a century, to add icing to the cake, presenting a rebuilding world and retconning Abeir-Toril from being the planet's almost never used full name (so it'd be first in the setting encyclopedia) to to being twin planets, with Abeir, under the dominion of the [[Archomental|Primordials]], serving as an origin for 4th edition races.

Unfortunately... the result was an absolute PR ''nightmare''. The dramatic changes in everything from geology to cosmology, with the [[World Tree]] replaced by the [[World Axis]], just infuriated the setting's fandom, who have something of a reputation as obsessive-compulsive [[grognard]]s even by the standards of the D&D fandom.

Not surprisingly, when the edition change rolled out, a new apocalyptic makeover, the Sundering, was used alongside a 10 year skip to change things more back to the way they were. Although, on the plus side, a lot of the uber-NPCs who didn't have huge fanbases actually stayed dead - they even killed off some more of Mystara's Chosen during the Sundering.

All in all, Forgotten Realms is the ultimate [[skub]] setting of D&D, with people still bitching over every little change from 1st edition onwards. Ironically, 5e's attempt at focusing attention on the Realms has begun making it even less popular, as by this point most of the fandom is getting well and truly sick that one setting is getting all the 5e love.

You'll notice going down that a lot of the sub-settings in particular seem to rip-off of real-world places and people. Well, that's intentional: Forgotten Realms was designed with the idea that it has long had secret portals to our real world throughout history - which may or may not have anything to do with the D&D Cartoon. So, a lot of shit in Forgotten Realms is literally supposed to have either been brought there from earth, or inspired earth by slipping through the portals. Mulhurond, for example, is not only "Ancient Egypt in D&D with the Egyptian Gods ruling it", but is by its fluff actually populated ''by'' the descendants of Ancient Egyptians who were sucked through portals into the Realms and enslaved by evil wizards.

===Faerûn===
Medieval/Renaissance Europe/Near East/Africa. The setting of the vast majority of D&D stories, including those of a certain dark elf, to top it all off with the center of attention in D&D videogames to boot. This setting provided inspiration for most of the 3e [[splatbook|splatbooks]]. Most of the attention Faerûn gets is centered on its west coast, the Swordcoast and Dalelands.

====Shining South====
Pseudo-Africa and Pseudo-India, in that it's mostly covered in tropical jungles and swamps, with one huge-ass desert. Notable regions include Halruaa, an isolationist [[magocracy]]], Dambrath, a nation of horse-riding, [[Loviatar]]-worshipping black [[amazons]] (of the "women run things, men obey" variety) ruled over the by Cintri (a matriarchal mixture of [[half-elves]], [[drow]], and half-drow), and the [[halfling]] homeland of Luiren. Is home to Faerun's native population of [[thri-kreen]], as well as a race of [[spelljammer|alien]] [[beastfolk|elephant people]] called [[Loxo]]s.

Despite the Shining South's lack of any major influence or pronounced interaction with the rest of the Forgotten Realms, the damage this regions suffered as a result of the [[Spellplague]] - which, amongst other things, saw Halruaa blow up and Dambrath's Cintri rulers be deposed by a human uprising that brought about a restoration of their pre-Cintri culture - was hugely unpopular. Some of that is inexplicable - Halruaa blowing up makes perfect sense, since the place was literally as magical as [[Eberron]] and the Spellplague's whole thing was making magic dangerously unstable - but other complaints are more reasonable; if such an "old ways" movement against the Cintri had ever been explicitly mentioned in 3e or 2e lore, Dambrath's civil uprising would have made sense, but instead it just comes out of nowhere.

====Unapproachable East====
Eastern Asia, a blend of Mongolian, Russian, Indian and Chinese traits. Most famous for being the lands covering Thay, the biggest civilization of evil wizards in the setting, and the more obscure land of Rasheman, which is sort of Russian berserker country ruled by masked witches but which everyone knows because it's the homeland of [[Minsc]]. It's the setting for ''Mask of the Betrayer'', the first expansion pack for ''Neverwinter Nights 2'', since they decided to set a Forgotten Realms video game somewhere interesting for once.

===[[The Horde|Hordelands]]===
The Eurasian Steppes, with Tibet thrown in as well, and yes they had their own version of [[Genghis motherfucking Khan]] and mongol invasions. Didn't get updated for [[3e]], but bits got included in a Dragon article for 4e.

===[[Kara-Tur]]===
Ancient China/Japan/Korea. Updated for 3e with the ''[[Weeaboo Fightan Magic|Book of Weeaboo Fightan Magic]]'' and ''Oriental Adventures'', but never updated for 4e as a setting. Little bits of it was included in Dragon for 4e, covering [[Weeaboo|Samurai and Ninja]] and horde themes as well as new monk stuff and [[Hengeyokai]] as a race.

====Malatra====
Ancient India/Southeast Asia. Got its own living campaign at the end of [[2e]] and the beginning of 3e, and was soon forgotten afterwards.

===[[Maztica]]===
Pre-Columbian South/Central America, the subject of the eponymous splatbook for AD&D. Was not updated for [[3e|3rd Edition]], but skipped a generation and got an update for [[4e|4th Edition]]. In the form of being replaced by the continent of Abeir and having everything about it shunted into another universe. Wasn't in [[3e]] either so fuck them. Manages to be the skubbiest aspect of the setting; some adore it for being South American Fantasy, a rare thing, others hate it for being so transparently "the Aztec world shunted into the Forgotten Realms".

====Anchorome====
Pre-Columbian North America. What's written about is based on the [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ancestral_Puebloans Native Americans of the Four Corners] cultures.

====Katashaka====
Despite being located south of not!Central America, it's supposed to be based on Pre-Colonial Africa, and that is literally all that is known.

===Osse===
Pre-Colonial Australia. That's largely all that's known.

===[[Al-Qadim|Zakhara]]===
Medieval Middle East/Hollywood Arabia. Left to hang in the wind after 2e ended, save some 3e articles in [[Dragon Magazine]], and probably not likely to come back any time soon. But 5e did bring back the yakmen.

===Abeir===
Home to the [[Dragonborn]] and primordial elementals, as well as all the new sub-giant races and whatever else was introduced in 4e. Ruled over by evil draconic overlords, barring a few kingdoms founded by rebellious giants and humans. Oh, and some weird undead empire that has magical undead-only portals connecting to all graveyards and mausoleums and crypts on Toril, which they claim as their territory.

==Abridged History==
===Creation===
[[Ao]] creates the twin sister deities [[Shar]] and [[Selûne]]. Shar is darkity darkness levels of evil and Selûne isn't. So naturally they hate each other. They swirl around in the void that is Realmspace for gods know how long until via catfighting, they accidentally create Toril and create a couple of gods, mainly [[Chauntea]] and [[Mystryl]]. The latter going on to die several times and become [[Mystra]] because she couldn't fucking balance the byproduct of her creation, the Weave, which is the source of all magic, both Arcane and Divine. Things just got out of hand after that and next thing you know, you've got your campaign setting.

===Karsus's Folly===
In -339 DR an archwizard named [[Karsus]] attempts to save the Netheril Empire by making the only 12th level spell in existence- presumably. The spell robbbed Mystryl of her powers and magic for a short time and was really awesome, but then magic goes wild because a fucking epic-level caster does not equate to a level-uncapped deity that handles fucking magic everywhere. In short Karsus ruined everything for everybody on that day. Lucky Mystryl was there to sacrifice herself and put all of her powers into a young female wizard and rose again as Mystra. Marking the first in the goddess's long line of deaths and rebirths. This sparked all the shit that went down in the game [[Neverwinter Nights]] 2, and is the reason why Magic sort of meets a cap.

===Times of Troubles===
The Times of Troubles, also known as the Avatar Crisis, started in 1358 DR when the two deities [[Bane]] and [[Myrkul]] thought it would be a great idea to steal the Tablets of Fate from the overdeity Ao. As punishment Ao banishes all of the gods to walk on Toril as mortals (except for [[Helm]] who was to guard the gateway back into the heavens) until whoever stole them felt bad and returned them. During this time Mystra got some of her power back and thought it would be a brilliant idea to challenge Helm to get back into the heavens. Helm wouldn't have any of it and and bitch slapped her down the Celestial Stairway. She hit the bottom and died in an explosion of magic. Eventually some mortals, Midnight (who went on to be the next Mystra), [[Kelemvor]], [[Cyric]], and Adon of Sune, fixed everything and they got be gods for a reward. Except for Adon of Sune, he really got the short end of the stick on the loot table for that encounter. He lost faith in Mystra, committed suicide, then got his faith back and went on to frolic in the brothel in the sky. This signaled the change from AD&D 1e to the second edition and magic changed in real time in correspondence to these events, depicted in the canon Forgotten Realms Comic book series, featuring Bruce Campell as an Ex-drug addict halfling, an ex-alcoholic Paladin, an Elf with expressions that would put the Laughing elf to shame, a hot golem, and other goodies.

===The Spellplague===
In 1385 DR the goddess Shar had the god Cyric stab the goddess of magic Mystra. This caused giant pillars of blue fire to ravage Toril, killing untold masses and driving most wizards to madness. One of the few wizards to be unaffected by the event is Szass Tam, who continues to be a badass by turning into an uber-powerful [[lich]], seizing control over Thay, and killing off almost everybody there to create a fuck-huge kingdom of the undead. To make matters worse, unlike the previous times Mystra has died she couldn't reincarnate, a stunning development that "changes the rules of magic" which translates as another real-time spell-casting change for [[4e]] rules, just like what happened in the Time of Trouble. Parts of the planet end up either destroyed or switching places with parts of the land from Abeir. [[Elminster]] lost his special status and all his powers, and most of his Chosen buddies wound up dead. The Pantheon was reshuffled, tieflings changed to match the new unified tiefling look, and the [[World Tree]] was reshaped into the [[World Axis]]. It was a huge upheaval, with insurmountable [[rage]] from its critics.

===The Sundering===
In 1485, the worlds of Abeir and Toril split apart again, as WoTC tried to deseperately bring back the Faerun grognards by [[retcon|retconning]] the Spellplague. It turns out being stabbed wasn't in fact enough to kill Mystra, she was just hungry and had wandered off to find a cheeseburger made of her own children. Abeir went back to where it belonged and several other dead gods who were deemed superfluous suddenly came back to life.

This event was known as the 'Sundering' but the writers didn't want to piss off the fans, so they held off explaining what the fuck happened until the fans could tell them what, in their opinion, should have happened. While waiting to be told how to do their jobs, dragons attacked everyone, trying to rescue [[Tiamat]] from [[Baator|Hell]] where she had in fact NOT been since before the Spellplague but because she was there in every other setting, we're all supposed to pretend that she was, so mighty adventurers can stop her from escaping in a linear story which was easier than the likes of the first time this asspull was pulled with Bloodstone Pass, Fuck you Bahamut.

From there, various other intersecting adventure modules happened at roughly the same time, and since things were mostly back to the pre-4e days everyone was happy. Except [[dragonborn]] fans (and dragonborn, whatever you think of them, are still a damn core race), as the writers quickly killed almost all of them off, crammed them into a tiny reservation, and have yet to make a single dragonborn NPC for any adventure module yet released, just to rub salt in the wound. None the less, many grognards still balk at the return of several 4th edition era elements, such as cramming the [[Shadowfell]] and the [[Feywild]] in the Great Wheel. But, appeasing the old guard is ridiculously hard anyway. As much as the old guard want a full reboot back to the Old Gray Box era (or some other era which can't be agreed on), the Sundering made it pretty clear that there is "One Canon, One Story, One Realms". Given the popularity of this new Realms among new players, it's unlikely that any major reboot or alteration will happen any time soon.

==Interesting Side Notes==
*[[Drizzt]] will outlive all of his friends and he cries about this often until they fixed it.
*There was a time Drizzt was bearable, until all of his adventures amounted to the power of friendship and his magical power of secretly Lolth's blessing empowering him into a murderhobo edge lord that got so broken he BEAT FUCKING DEMOGORGON with the power of an anime power-up one shot asspull to SAVE THE UNDERDARK
*The Neverwinter Online scenario of this event had the Demon Prince smack him and his party straight into an Abyssal rift, after the generic shounen speech of the power of friendship which is a great way to retcon this entire event for a ranger beating a monster so hard to kill based on how much it can throw at a party in summon-spam alone, nevermind the threat the creature itself actually poses.
*[[Elminster]] has sex with Elvira who is polymorphed into a man. He also was turned into a woman once, he's effectively, a massive fucking degenerate that hasn't been killed off because plot Armour and horribly oppressive "good" organization of spies, scouts, and adventurers he tricks into doing his work for him, he also advertises Faerun as anything but a clusterfuck continent so full, it feels more like the description of the endless murderfest an MMORPG provides over an actual living setting.
*[[Szass Tam]] is fucking awesome and basically Ming the Merciless in D&D.
*[[Larloch]], Feared Master of the Warlock's Crypt, is one of the few statted NPCs representative of a finalized epic-level minmaxed PC wizard, with so much shit in his arsenal he ranks as a DMPC in his own right. He's also (with a little bit of Szass Tam) the inspiration for the character of Ainz Ooal Gown from [[Approved anime|Overlord.]]
*[[Tempus]], the badass bro jock god of battle.
*The world goes to hell in the [[Dungeons & Dragons 4th Edition|4th edition]].
*After apparently being killed by one of his only friends, the god Helm survived the Spellplague in the form of a goat.
*The first 3-D CRPG was set in FR.
*[[This Guy|Jarlaxle the dashing drow mercenary]] had a [[Monstergirls|three way with twin copper dragon sisters]] named Tazmikella and Ilnezhra.
*Khelben Blackstaff has a fear of Lawyers and will do ANYTHING in his powers to avoid them, even resorting to elaborate illusions of unwanted marital scenarios to avoid lawsuits from extraplanar entities (I am not making this up)
*The setting is so high magic that even before the current established era in 3.5 and onward, even back in Ancient Netheril, there were FUCKING LICHES EVERYWHERE.
*The God of Vampires does not give a fuck, do not try to make him, he will just try to eat you and fuck with you on his layer of the Abyss.
*His high priest fucks Lolth, and this is the reason why Drow like vampires so much
*The last time a vampire gave a shit in FR, he nearly conquered Baldur's Gate itself solo, but got his ass kicked because he went ahead of a forty-thousand undead strong army with a macguffin that literally made him an Elder Evil, by technicality of demigod level strength which would have been even more broken anyway as he was a base vampire + vampire Lord
*[[Minsc]] was petrified, turned into stone, and kept preserved until [[Wizards of the Coast|marketing]] would call upon him again for a lackluster comic book series that is only good for shilling 5th edition products as bad as Neverwinter Online did and Siege of Dragonspear

==Forgotten Realms And Sex==
{{sick}}
The current Forgotten Realms material is highly sanitized from Ed's original vision. In FR as created by Ed:

*Bi-sexuality is normal (and yes, this means the [[Elf|men]] as well as the [[Amazon|women]])
*"Revels" (sex orgies) are normal
*"Festhalls" (brothels) are in every small village and visiting them is normal way to spend evening.
*Prostitution is the main industry of Forgotten Realms, "sex workers" are everywhere and there are about 100 different names for different kinds of prostitutes.
*Incest is normal way for families to "indulge feelings of mutual affection"
*Public city-wide orgies are the way to celebrate major holidays

All of this is confirmed by [[Ed Greenwood]] himself, from Ed's responses to fan queries on the Candlekeep forum.
[http://www.candlekeep.com/library/articles/sse/so_saith_ed.htm So Saith Ed here,] [https://pastebin.com/hEVadYsN here,] [https://pastebin.com/1MuQ6wFt and here.] It's also all completely, 100% canon thanks to Ed's ludicrously favorable contract; other writers can try to dance around the creepy shit, but they can't outright contradict ''anything'' or else the whole setting falls into Ed's greasy, sticky hands.

Of course, this isn't exactly out of place in certain historical periods and cultures (Greeks, in particular the Etruscans, were known for having frequent orgies and the nobility of many cultures like Hawaiians and the Ptolemy Egyptians practiced sibling incest so as to aviod muddling the bloodline with peasant genome; Rome had all of the above at various points), so some individual cultures or nations with this going on probably wouldn't be off the mark... but when the whole damn world is into this stuff and it's not treated as a problem, then clearly the author has something on his mind.

In short, the Forgotten Realms are [[Ed Greenwood]]'s [[magical realm]] cleaned up by [[TSR]] and later [[Hasbro]] for general consumption, and the Romantic Encounters mod for [[Baldur's Gate]] is probably canon.

{{D&D-Settings}}

[[Category:Forgotten Realms]]

Forgotten Realms

2019-08-21T16:23:17Z

2602:306:B88B:FB60:3873:4D54:3721:6C86: /* Forgotten Realms And Sex */

[[Image:3EFRlogo.gif|center]]
'''Forgotten Realms''' is an official [[Dungeons & Dragons Campaign Settings|Dungeons and Dragons campaign setting]] created by [[Ed Greenwood]] circa 1967 for his little stories, but was not part of the official [[Wizards of the Coast]] lineup until 1987 and has since been supported by WotC through all five editions of the game. The setting is supported by hundreds of novels' worth of lore by dozens of authors.

==Setting==
[[File:Toril-3e.jpg|thumb|right|400px|]]
Set on the planet Abeir-Toril, most of the Forgotten Realms source material focuses on the continent Faerûn. Faerûn is pretty similar to pre-industrial Europe, with the exceptions of all of that crazy fantasy stuff. There is a plethora of nations, kingdoms, organizations, deities, and fully fleshed out NPCs who are ripe with political intrigue and conflict. There is absolutely nothing on Toril that has not been fully fleshed out, so there is very, very little room for your own stuff.

Even WoTC thought that this had gotten really out of hand: when 4th edition rolled along, they decided to give the place a reboot. Hey, the Time of Troubles worked for the 1e-to-2e shift, right? They came up with the idea of "the Spellplague": killing Mystara off through the machinations of her long-time enemy Cyric and triggering another massive magical upheaval, similar to the one that had ended the Age of Magic when Mystryl had been killed off. They then skipped time forward a century, to add icing to the cake, presenting a rebuilding world and retconning Abeir-Toril from being the planet's almost never used full name (so it'd be first in the setting encyclopedia) to to being twin planets, with Abeir, under the dominion of the [[Archomental|Primordials]], serving as an origin for 4th edition races.

Unfortunately... the result was an absolute PR ''nightmare''. The dramatic changes in everything from geology to cosmology, with the [[World Tree]] replaced by the [[World Axis]], just infuriated the setting's fandom, who have something of a reputation as obsessive-compulsive [[grognard]]s even by the standards of the D&D fandom.

Not surprisingly, when the edition change rolled out, a new apocalyptic makeover, the Sundering, was used alongside a 10 year skip to change things more back to the way they were. Although, on the plus side, a lot of the uber-NPCs who didn't have huge fanbases actually stayed dead - they even killed off some more of Mystara's Chosen during the Sundering.

All in all, Forgotten Realms is the ultimate [[skub]] setting of D&D, with people still bitching over every little change from 1st edition onwards. Ironically, 5e's attempt at focusing attention on the Realms has begun making it even less popular, as by this point most of the fandom is getting well and truly sick that one setting is getting all the 5e love.

You'll notice going down that a lot of the sub-settings in particular seem to rip-off of real-world places and people. Well, that's intentional: Forgotten Realms was designed with the idea that it has long had secret portals to our real world throughout history - which may or may not have anything to do with the D&D Cartoon. So, a lot of shit in Forgotten Realms is literally supposed to have either been brought there from earth, or inspired earth by slipping through the portals. Mulhurond, for example, is not only "Ancient Egypt in D&D with the Egyptian Gods ruling it", but is by its fluff actually populated ''by'' the descendants of Ancient Egyptians who were sucked through portals into the Realms and enslaved by evil wizards.

===Faerûn===
Medieval/Renaissance Europe/Near East/Africa. The setting of the vast majority of D&D stories, including those of a certain dark elf, to top it all off with the center of attention in D&D videogames to boot. This setting provided inspiration for most of the 3e [[splatbook|splatbooks]]. Most of the attention Faerûn gets is centered on its west coast, the Swordcoast and Dalelands.

====Shining South====
Pseudo-Africa and Pseudo-India, in that it's mostly covered in tropical jungles and swamps, with one huge-ass desert. Notable regions include Halruaa, an isolationist [[magocracy]]], Dambrath, a nation of horse-riding, [[Loviatar]]-worshipping black [[amazons]] (of the "women run things, men obey" variety) ruled over the by Cintri (a matriarchal mixture of [[half-elves]], [[drow]], and half-drow), and the [[halfling]] homeland of Luiren. Is home to Faerun's native population of [[thri-kreen]], as well as a race of [[spelljammer|alien]] [[beastfolk|elephant people]] called [[Loxo]]s.

Despite the Shining South's lack of any major influence or pronounced interaction with the rest of the Forgotten Realms, the damage this regions suffered as a result of the [[Spellplague]] - which, amongst other things, saw Halruaa blow up and Dambrath's Cintri rulers be deposed by a human uprising that brought about a restoration of their pre-Cintri culture - was hugely unpopular. Some of that is inexplicable - Halruaa blowing up makes perfect sense, since the place was literally as magical as [[Eberron]] and the Spellplague's whole thing was making magic dangerously unstable - but other complaints are more reasonable; if such an "old ways" movement against the Cintri had ever been explicitly mentioned in 3e or 2e lore, Dambrath's civil uprising would have made sense, but instead it just comes out of nowhere.

====Unapproachable East====
Eastern Asia, a blend of Mongolian, Russian, Indian and Chinese traits. Most famous for being the lands covering Thay, the biggest civilization of evil wizards in the setting, and the more obscure land of Rasheman, which is sort of Russian berserker country ruled by masked witches but which everyone knows because it's the homeland of [[Minsc]]. It's the setting for ''Mask of the Betrayer'', the first expansion pack for ''Neverwinter Nights 2'', since they decided to set a Forgotten Realms video game somewhere interesting for once.

===[[The Horde|Hordelands]]===
The Eurasian Steppes, with Tibet thrown in as well, and yes they had their own version of [[Genghis motherfucking Khan]] and mongol invasions. Didn't get updated for [[3e]], but bits got included in a Dragon article for 4e.

===[[Kara-Tur]]===
Ancient China/Japan/Korea. Updated for 3e with the ''[[Weeaboo Fightan Magic|Book of Weeaboo Fightan Magic]]'' and ''Oriental Adventures'', but never updated for 4e as a setting. Little bits of it was included in Dragon for 4e, covering [[Weeaboo|Samurai and Ninja]] and horde themes as well as new monk stuff and [[Hengeyokai]] as a race.

====Malatra====
Ancient India/Southeast Asia. Got its own living campaign at the end of [[2e]] and the beginning of 3e, and was soon forgotten afterwards.

===[[Maztica]]===
Pre-Columbian South/Central America, the subject of the eponymous splatbook for AD&D. Was not updated for [[3e|3rd Edition]], but skipped a generation and got an update for [[4e|4th Edition]]. In the form of being replaced by the continent of Abeir and having everything about it shunted into another universe. Wasn't in [[3e]] either so fuck them. Manages to be the skubbiest aspect of the setting; some adore it for being South American Fantasy, a rare thing, others hate it for being so transparently "the Aztec world shunted into the Forgotten Realms".

====Anchorome====
Pre-Columbian North America. What's written about is based on the [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ancestral_Puebloans Native Americans of the Four Corners] cultures.

====Katashaka====
Despite being located south of not!Central America, it's supposed to be based on Pre-Colonial Africa, and that is literally all that is known.

===Osse===
Pre-Colonial Australia. That's largely all that's known.

===[[Al-Qadim|Zakhara]]===
Medieval Middle East/Hollywood Arabia. Left to hang in the wind after 2e ended, save some 3e articles in [[Dragon Magazine]], and probably not likely to come back any time soon. But 5e did bring back the yakmen.

===Abeir===
Home to the [[Dragonborn]] and primordial elementals, as well as all the new sub-giant races and whatever else was introduced in 4e. Ruled over by evil draconic overlords, barring a few kingdoms founded by rebellious giants and humans. Oh, and some weird undead empire that has magical undead-only portals connecting to all graveyards and mausoleums and crypts on Toril, which they claim as their territory.

==Abridged History==
===Creation===
[[Ao]] creates the twin sister deities [[Shar]] and [[Selûne]]. Shar is darkity darkness levels of evil and Selûne isn't. So naturally they hate each other. They swirl around in the void that is Realmspace for gods know how long until via catfighting, they accidentally create Toril and create a couple of gods, mainly [[Chauntea]] and [[Mystryl]]. The latter going on to die several times and become [[Mystra]] because she couldn't fucking balance the byproduct of her creation, the Weave, which is the source of all magic, both Arcane and Divine. Things just got out of hand after that and next thing you know, you've got your campaign setting.

===Karsus's Folly===
In -339 DR an archwizard named [[Karsus]] attempts to save the Netheril Empire by making the only 12th level spell in existence- presumably. The spell robbbed Mystryl of her powers and magic for a short time and was really awesome, but then magic goes wild because a fucking epic-level caster does not equate to a level-uncapped deity that handles fucking magic everywhere. In short Karsus ruined everything for everybody on that day. Lucky Mystryl was there to sacrifice herself and put all of her powers into a young female wizard and rose again as Mystra. Marking the first in the goddess's long line of deaths and rebirths. This sparked all the shit that went down in the game [[Neverwinter Nights]] 2, and is the reason why Magic sort of meets a cap.

===Times of Troubles===
The Times of Troubles, also known as the Avatar Crisis, started in 1358 DR when the two deities [[Bane]] and [[Myrkul]] thought it would be a great idea to steal the Tablets of Fate from the overdeity Ao. As punishment Ao banishes all of the gods to walk on Toril as mortals (except for [[Helm]] who was to guard the gateway back into the heavens) until whoever stole them felt bad and returned them. During this time Mystra got some of her power back and thought it would be a brilliant idea to challenge Helm to get back into the heavens. Helm wouldn't have any of it and and bitch slapped her down the Celestial Stairway. She hit the bottom and died in an explosion of magic. Eventually some mortals, Midnight (who went on to be the next Mystra), [[Kelemvor]], [[Cyric]], and Adon of Sune, fixed everything and they got be gods for a reward. Except for Adon of Sune, he really got the short end of the stick on the loot table for that encounter. He lost faith in Mystra, committed suicide, then got his faith back and went on to frolic in the brothel in the sky. This signaled the change from AD&D 1e to the second edition and magic changed in real time in correspondence to these events, depicted in the canon Forgotten Realms Comic book series, featuring Bruce Campell as an Ex-drug addict halfling, an ex-alcoholic Paladin, an Elf with expressions that would put the Laughing elf to shame, a hot golem, and other goodies.

===The Spellplague===
In 1385 DR the goddess Shar had the god Cyric stab the goddess of magic Mystra. This caused giant pillars of blue fire to ravage Toril, killing untold masses and driving most wizards to madness. One of the few wizards to be unaffected by the event is Szass Tam, who continues to be a badass by turning into an uber-powerful [[lich]], seizing control over Thay, and killing off almost everybody there to create a fuck-huge kingdom of the undead. To make matters worse, unlike the previous times Mystra has died she couldn't reincarnate, a stunning development that "changes the rules of magic" which translates as another real-time spell-casting change for [[4e]] rules, just like what happened in the Time of Trouble. Parts of the planet end up either destroyed or switching places with parts of the land from Abeir. [[Elminster]] lost his special status and all his powers, and most of his Chosen buddies wound up dead. The Pantheon was reshuffled, tieflings changed to match the new unified tiefling look, and the [[World Tree]] was reshaped into the [[World Axis]]. It was a huge upheaval, with insurmountable [[rage]] from its critics.

===The Sundering===
In 1485, the worlds of Abeir and Toril split apart again, as WoTC tried to deseperately bring back the Faerun grognards by [[retcon|retconning]] the Spellplague. It turns out being stabbed wasn't in fact enough to kill Mystra, she was just hungry and had wandered off to find a cheeseburger made of her own children. Abeir went back to where it belonged and several other dead gods who were deemed superfluous suddenly came back to life.

This event was known as the 'Sundering' but the writers didn't want to piss off the fans, so they held off explaining what the fuck happened until the fans could tell them what, in their opinion, should have happened. While waiting to be told how to do their jobs, dragons attacked everyone, trying to rescue [[Tiamat]] from [[Baator|Hell]] where she had in fact NOT been since before the Spellplague but because she was there in every other setting, we're all supposed to pretend that she was, so mighty adventurers can stop her from escaping in a linear story which was easier than the likes of the first time this asspull was pulled with Bloodstone Pass, Fuck you Bahamut.

From there, various other intersecting adventure modules happened at roughly the same time, and since things were mostly back to the pre-4e days everyone was happy. Except [[dragonborn]] fans (and dragonborn, whatever you think of them, are still a damn core race), as the writers quickly killed almost all of them off, crammed them into a tiny reservation, and have yet to make a single dragonborn NPC for any adventure module yet released, just to rub salt in the wound. None the less, many grognards still balk at the return of several 4th edition era elements, such as cramming the [[Shadowfell]] and the [[Feywild]] in the Great Wheel. But, appeasing the old guard is ridiculously hard anyway. As much as the old guard want a full reboot back to the Old Gray Box era (or some other era which can't be agreed on), the Sundering made it pretty clear that there is "One Canon, One Story, One Realms". Given the popularity of this new Realms among new players, it's unlikely that any major reboot or alteration will happen any time soon.

==Interesting Side Notes==
*[[Drizzt]] will outlive all of his friends and he cries about this often until they fixed it.
*There was a time Drizzt was bearable, until all of his adventures amounted to the power of friendship and his magical power of secretly Lolth's blessing empowering him into a murderhobo edge lord that got so broken he BEAT FUCKING DEMOGORGON with the power of an anime power-up one shot asspull to SAVE THE UNDERDARK
*The Neverwinter Online scenario of this event had the Demon Prince smack him and his party straight into an Abyssal rift, after the generic shounen speech of the power of friendship which is a great way to retcon this entire event for a ranger beating a monster so hard to kill based on how much it can throw at a party in summon-spam alone, nevermind the threat the creature itself actually poses.
*[[Elminster]] has sex with Elvira who is polymorphed into a man. He also was turned into a woman once, he's effectively, a massive fucking degenerate that hasn't been killed off because plot Armour and horribly oppressive "good" organization of spies, scouts, and adventurers he tricks into doing his work for him, he also advertises Faerun as anything but a clusterfuck continent so full, it feels more like the description of the endless murderfest an MMORPG provides over an actual living setting.
*[[Szass Tam]] is fucking awesome and basically Ming the Merciless in D&D.
*[[Larloch]], Feared Master of the Warlock's Crypt, is one of the few statted NPCs representative of a finalized epic-level minmaxed PC wizard, with so much shit in his arsenal he ranks as a DMPC in his own right. He's also (with a little bit of Szass Tam) the inspiration for the character of Ainz Ooal Gown from [[Approved anime|Overlord.]]
*[[Tempus]], the badass bro jock god of battle.
*The world goes to hell in the [[Dungeons & Dragons 4th Edition|4th edition]].
*After apparently being killed by one of his only friends, the god Helm survived the Spellplague in the form of a goat.
*The first 3-D CRPG was set in FR.
*[[This Guy|Jarlaxle the dashing drow mercenary]] had a [[Monstergirls|three way with twin copper dragon sisters]] named Tazmikella and Ilnezhra.
*Khelben Blackstaff has a fear of Lawyers and will do ANYTHING in his powers to avoid them, even resorting to elaborate illusions of unwanted marital scenarios to avoid lawsuits from extraplanar entities (I am not making this up)
*The setting is so high magic that even before the current established era in 3.5 and onward, even back in Ancient Netheril, there were FUCKING LICHES EVERYWHERE.
*The God of Vampires does not give a fuck, do not try to make him, he will just try to eat you and fuck with you on his layer of the Abyss.
*His high priest fucks Lolth, and this is the reason why Drow like vampires so much
*The last time a vampire gave a shit in FR, he nearly conquered Baldur's Gate itself solo, but got his ass kicked because he went ahead of a forty-thousand undead strong army with a macguffin that literally made him an Elder Evil, by technicality of demigod level strength which would have been even more broken anyway as he was a base vampire + vampire Lord
*[[Minsc]] was petrified, turned into stone, and kept preserved until [[Wizards of the Coast|marketing]] would call upon him again for a lackluster comic book series that is only good for shilling 5th edition products as bad as Neverwinter Online did and Siege of Dragonspear

==Forgotten Realms And Sex==
{{sick}}
The current Forgotten Realms material is highly sanitized from Ed's original vision. In FR as created by Ed:

*Bi-sexuality is normal (and yes, this means the [[Elf|men]] as well as the [[Amazon|women]])
*"Revels" (sex orgies) are normal
*"Festhalls" (brothels) are in every small village and visiting them is normal way to spend evening.
*Prostitution is the main industry of Forgotten Realms, "sex workers" are everywhere and there are about 100 different names for different kinds of prostitutes.
*Incest is normal way for families to "indulge feelings of mutual affection"
*Public city-wide orgies are the way to celebrate major holidays

All of this is confirmed by [[Ed Greenwood]] himself, from Ed's responses to fan queries on the Candlekeep forum.
[http://www.candlekeep.com/library/articles/sse/so_saith_ed.htm So Saith Ed here,] [https://pastebin.com/hEVadYsN here,] [https://pastebin.com/1MuQ6wFt and here.] It's also all completely, 100% canon thanks to Ed's ludicrously favorable contract; other writers can try to dance around the creepy shit, but they can't outright contradict ''anything'' or else the whole setting falls into Ed's greasy, sticky hands.

Of course, this isn't exactly out of place in certain historical periods and cultures (Greeks, in particular the Etruscans, were known for having frequent orgies and the nobility of many cultures like Hawaiians and the Ptolemy Egyptians practiced sibling incest so as to aviod muddling the bloodline with peasant genome; Rome had all of the above at various points), so some individual cultures or nations with this going on probably wouldn't be off the mark... but when the whole damn world is into this stuff and it's not treated as a problem, then clearly the author has something on his mind.

In short, the Forgotten Realms are [[Ed Greenwood]]'s [[magical realm]] cleaned up by TSR and later [[Hasbro]] for general consumption, and the Romantic Encounters mod for [[Baldur's Gate]] is probably canon.

{{D&D-Settings}}

[[Category:Forgotten Realms]]

Catachan Jungle Fighters

2019-08-21T04:22:28Z

2602:306:B88B:FB60:3873:4D54:3721:6C86: Undo revision 594623 by 85.27.200.192 (talk)

[[File:26405 sm-2nd Edition, Artwork, Catachan, Copyright Games Workshop, Imperial Guard, Retro Review.jpg|300px|thumb|right|They're kind of like Vietnam War-esque Diet [[Space Marines]] that bench trees and sweat hammers.]]
[[File:CatachanJungleFighters.jpg|300px|thumb|left|This man's knife is as big as his thigh, and his arms are the size of ''your'' thigh. Clearly not a knife to be screwed with. ]]
{{Topquote|War is in your blood. Don't fight it. You didn't kill for your country. You killed for yourself. The gods are never gonna make that go away. When you're pushed, killing's as easy as breathing.|'''Rambo''', Rambo IV}}

The '''Catachan Jungle Fighters''' (also known in the bodybuilding industry as the ABhumans and Diet [[Spess mehreen]]s) are a [[Imperial Guard Regiment|Regiment]] of the [[Imperial Guard]] from the [[Death World]] of Death Worlds, [[Catachan]] (pronounced ''cata-can''). They are mainly noted for having what are quite possibly the largest balls in the entire [[Imperium]], as Catachan is basically [[Death World|Hell]] and pretty much everything can kill you, including the goddamn flowers. Every animal is either carnivorous and/or poisonous, with all carnivores hunting and devouring their smaller counterparts. Basically the [[Imperial Guard]]'s version of [[Marbo|Rambo]]/Schwarzenegger/Chuck Norris hybrids, super-survivalists based on the US Green Berets/Marines of the Vietnam War and/or British Royal Marines Commandos. They are the toughest motherfuckers in town who are so ripped some believe they are a race of [[Abhuman|abhumans]]; they are in fact so muscled they can wear flimsy tanktops to show off their muscle and still get the same grade of protection as a [[Cadia|Cadian Shock Trooper]] in full armor, and the most RIPPED of them can get the same degree of protection as Carapace armor from their ROCK HARD ABS.

Keep in mind that flak armor can stop ''lasers'' and carapace armor can block ''bolter shells from Space Marines''. Wonder why the Emprah didn't create a Space Marine chapter out of these badasses... Oh yes, because Marines are forbidden to command armies of mortals, Chapter Worlds are freed from Imperial Tithe, AND Munitorium is sane enough not to lose the source of guys like [[Sly Marbo]].

To make them even more badass, Catachans were later confirmed to be physically and mentally superior to '''ANY''' normal human; basically, generations of breeding only the strongest and most swole badasses has resulted in these guys getting a free genetic upgrade... truly mini-spess mehreens. The swoleness is so real, that Catachans are nicknamed "Baby [[Ogryn]]s" by other guardsmen, although not usually to their faces, as they would then usually end up getting the beating of their lifetime or just outright killed.

A Catachan's favorite weapon is his trusty, simple, utilitarian and old-fashioned knife. If you listen to a Catachan then you'd start to wonder why the Imperium bothers with power swords and nemesis force halberds if steel sharpened on a stone is so good. Some of the various lies told by Catachans include: these knives, which every man and woman and child on the planet has made themselves, are prized throughout the galaxy even more so than the "fancy" and overrated chainswords that take too much maintenance, break often, would probably jam in Catachan flora, and can't be used for hunting because the lubricant would soil the meat. Orks absolutely love these guys - any respectable Ork would trade a chainsword or chop off his own arm to trade for their knives. Especially so for their biggest, more a sword really than a knife - its renown among da Orks is known as "Da Cutta". In return, a Catachan would rather give up his knife arm than his knife. Other favoured weapons amongst Catachans are the Flamer/Heavy Flamer, Sniper Rifle, Shotgun, and Demolition Charge. Using a Heavy Flamer in dense foliage is regarded as both safe and manly by the Catachans, who are balls-out rock hard.

Catachans don't like [[Commissars]] that much, mostly considering them to be arrogant, dolled up pussies. Usually most commissars end up "accidentally" walking into a Catachan trap (aka their knives and lasbolts) or "disappear" in different ways. The one individual to escape from this is [[Colonel Greiss]], by merit of being such a balls-out hardcore motherfucker that the Catachans could not help to respect him. Along with the Cadians they're the last kind of Guardsmen who you can buy GW made plastic models for from the source; for everyone else you either go third party or buy from Forgeworld (if they're the Death Korps anyway. Though it's not too hard to use the Death Korps to stand in for the Steel Legion), and while this may sound great; it's worth remembering that Catachan's models are... pretty infamously ugly (although this has more to do with GW's atrocious studio painting back in 1989, compared to other models from that time they're actually quite detailed and dynamic). With Chenkov and Al'rahem's removal they're also the only source of non-Cadian or Commissariat special characters in the codex.

But its not just prissies that Catachans have been known to have issues with (They use the words "Cadian" and "Mordian" as insults, basically meaning uptight pussies.), even tough n' gruff regiments like the [[Armageddon Ork Hunters]] have been known to have problems with them. This is due to the fact that 3 Catachan regiments were sent by badass [[Yarrick]] himself to help the Ork Hunters during the Third War of Armageddon, and ended up being better at killing Orks than the actual ORK HUNTERS. Apparently the night sky around the Ork Hunter's Cerberus Base was almost permanently lit with forest fires, and Orks could be heard screaming in every direction as the Catachans did their thaang. This obviously caused some jealousy with the Ork Hunters, and a bitter rivalry has existed ever since.

And, to top it all off, while everyone else was shitting their Munitorum-issued breeches when the Cicatrix Maledictum was expanding, the Catachans were busy kicking Chaos ass off their planet after it was exposed to a full scale invasion. Meanwhile other regiments like the [[Mordian Iron Guard]] ended up losing their worlds and getting raped by Tzeentchian Daemons. Upon reaching Catachan and discovering that the natives had already wiped out the invasion, the Indomitus Crusade simply made a pitstop to gain even more [[Imperial Guard|fuel units of awesome]] than they had when they left Terra to retake all the overrun precious space.

==Catachan Devils==
{{Topquote|If it bleeds, we can kill it.|"Dutch", Predator}}
Yeah, yeah, we know that Catachan has a big scary monster called this, but the elite of the already elite Jungle Fighters are also known as Catachan Devils, and form into units known as '''Catachan Devil Squads'''. These are the Swole-Kings, the baddest of the bad, the best Rambos on a planet full of Rambos. These elite warriors are basically specialists, masters of virtually every style of warfare, sent into the most dangerous of situations to perform raids, sabotage enemy war efforts and generally fuck up whatever is unfortunate to come their way. Their esteemed ranks include a man who crushed a Tyranid Ravener's neck with his biceps, and a dude who can take on entire armies. Don't know who i'm talking about? Then read on! (also, what's wrong with you?)

These guys were also a unit in DOW 2's Retribution DLC, they quickly became renowned amongst players as "Anti-Everything Sqauds", as they were capable of fucking up virtually any infantry and light vehicle unit if used correctly. They also had a badass voice actor who spouted out a shit ton of 80's action movie quotes, whilst sounding as if he drank gasoline and ate matches every day of his life.

==Catachan: A ''very, very, very, very, very'' shitty place to live==
[[File:Catachan Scout.jpg|300px|thumb|right|There are women with the Catachan Jungle Fighters, and they're even tougher than their male counterparts, since they have to raise the bastards! ]]
{{Topquote|Out there beyond that fence every living thing that crawls, flies, or squats in the mud wants to kill you and eat your eyes for jujubes.|[[Avatar|Colonel Miles Quaritch]]}}

If you think it sucks where you live... well, you know absolutely nothing. Here are just a few reasons why Catachan is the last place in the entire galaxy outside the [[Warp]] or [[Commorragh|certain parts of the Webway]] you would (or should) visit. It is canonically stated as being the worst death world in the '''ENTIRE''' Imperium, nudging out even the likes of Fenris and Cretacia... pussies:

*Humanity is near the '''BOTTOM''' of the food chain.
*Half of the babies are ''eaten violently'' before they are three.
*Half of those survivors are then eaten before they are ten, so you have a 1/4 chance of survival to adulthood.
*You have to be a deadly fighter by the time most humans have learned to spell
*Every living thing on the planet is poisonous, carnivorous, or both. Even the plants, like the Brainleaf that takes over the minds of anyone that comes into contact with its leaves (which it can shoot several yards away), and the Spiker, which turns anyone who is pricked by one of its spines into another Spiker.
*Agriculture is impossible on Catachan's soil. As a result all your food either comes off-world or from whatever animals the hunting party managed to subdue. Do note that because every animal on Catachan is designed to kill, any non-venomous creature you meet will either be a powerful warrior hunter beyond reason or cunningly brutal predator, so dinner is more likely to be the diner when bringing them down.
*Most predators on Catachan aren't just giant monsters like you'd find on [[Space Wolves|Fenris]] or [[Flesh Tearers|Cretacia]]. That would just be too easy. Many of Catachan's most lethal killers are small and seemingly harmless, so they will almost certainly kill you before you even see them. An example of this are the Heretic Ants (named because they start by eating away at men's soles) and the Catachan Barking Toad, which explodes into a cloud of absurdly lethal poison when startled that kills everything within a one kilometer radius- including the toad itself. If that isn't enough, even Power Armour can't protect you. In fact, no known armour can prevent the toads explosion from reducing you and everything else to a pile of steaming goop.
*There is so much dense jungle and so many deadly animals that Catachan does not need a planetary defense system, as the wildlife scares off the Tyranids and the Orks(who actually live there, but try to escape this hellhole as fast as possible). Only Hardcore Khornate Chaos Space Marines were <strike>brave</strike> mad enough to ''attack'' Catachan some time after Great Rift opening, and if you asked them why, they would have said: "Why the fuck not? This planet is fucking amazing for us." Needless to say, all of them feed Catachan's analogue of worms now. The effectiveness of Catachan's ecosystem is ''so'' good that it and the Catachan Jungle Fighters on the planet managed to repel a full-fledged daemon invasion ''when they were caught directly in the middle of the Great Rift''. Yes, not even the reality-bending bullshit of the Warp can stop Catachan and the Devils.
*Some of its wildlife is so deadly, that they have been released on worlds just to prevent invasion. (With hilariously predictable results; Ie: Infestations, killing the poor bastards who were already living there)
*You have to burn the jungle away from your village with a flamethrower at least once a day.
*The planet's major export is soldiers. No, wait. The planet's ''only'' export is soldiers.
*You live at several times Earth's gravity. But it's not THAT many times, or the Catachan people would be a good deal shorter, yet for some reason they are taller than most humans despite having no [[Space Marines|biological modifications]] or [[Adeptus Mechanicus|mechanical modifications]].
*Or in other words: Living on Catachan is like living perpetually in the first stages of a [[Tyranid]] invasion. In fact, some Magos Biologi have theorized that some of the wildlife (such as the Catachan Devils- monstrous half-scorpion half-centipede horrors that are capable of tearing apart tanks on their own) may have actually been Tyranid bio-forms that were separated from the Hive Mind and went feral in the distant past. In an issue of White Dwarf, Games Workshop even had the Catachan Devil as a Tyranid unit.

==Positive side==
There are, however, some positives that balance out all of the bad, bad things about being a guardsman from Catachan. Assuming you live long enough to enjoy them.

*Your muscles will be so thick that you count as having flak armor, even without a shirt on. If you wax your chest and liberally apply oil, it acts similarly to Space Marine armour. Only Catachan veterans know why this works. (it's because almost everything will slide off your abs up to and including battlecannon shells)
*Commissars seem about as intimidating as a grot compared to the horrors you've grown up with.
*You get to kill Commissars
*You are so badass that you use the terms "Cadian" and "Mordian" as an insult.
*You're able to kill [[Orks]] with your bare hands. If that doesn't work, you can use the FUCKHUEG knife you <strike>get</strike> make growing up.
*You might be led by [[Colonel "Iron Hand" Straken|Colonel "I ate a Miral landshark for breakfast" Straken]].
*You might also be led by [[Gunnery Sergeant "Stonetooth" Harker|Gunnery Sergeant "I headlock Tyranid Raveners to death" Harker]].
*You might get surprise help from [[Arden|Trooper "I killed twenty three Orks in one fight with a knife" Arden]]
*You can arm-wrestle a goddamn [[ork]].
*After all you went through growing up on your homeworld, most of the hardships of being in the Imperial Guard will be a joke to you.
*You can make Hollywood Action Heroes look like Justin Bieber by comparison.
*You are better at killing Orks than soldiers who actually specialise in killing Orks.
*It's very easy to get laid; there'd have to be a lot of screwing to keep the human population up on a place like this (only drawback is the competition for a partner would be high). If you [[Musclegirl|like muscles]], you'll like this place.
*Fuckhuge Sword-knife
*[[Sly Marbo]]

==Also see==
*[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XZ-EOg38t1o Catachan Guardsmen dealing with pesky Eldar]

{{40k-Imperial-Regiments}}
{{40k-Planets}}

Catachan Jungle Fighters

2019-08-21T04:22:10Z

2602:306:B88B:FB60:3873:4D54:3721:6C86: Undo revision 594624 by 85.27.200.192 (talk)

[[File:26405 sm-2nd Edition, Artwork, Catachan, Copyright Games Workshop, Imperial Guard, Retro Review.jpg|300px|thumb|right|They're kind of like Vietnam War-esque Diet [[Space Marines]] that bench trees and sweat hammers.]]
[[File:CatachanJungleFighters.jpg|300px|thumb|left|This man's knife is as big as his thigh, and his arms are the size of ''your'' thigh. Clearly not a knife to be screwed with. ]]
{{Topquote|War is in your blood. Don't fight it. You didn't kill for your country. You killed for yourself. The gods are never gonna make that go away. When you're pushed, killing's as easy as breathing.|'''Rambo''', Rambo IV}}

The '''Catachan Jungle Fighters''' (also known in the bodybuilding industry as the ABhumans and Diet [[Spess mehreen]]s) are a [[Imperial Guard Regiment|Regiment]] of the [[Imperial Guard]] from the [[Death World]] of Death Worlds, [[Catachan]] (pronounced ''cata-can''). They are mainly noted for having what are quite possibly the largest balls in the entire [[Imperium]], as Catachan is basically [[Death World|Hell]] and pretty much everything can kill you, including the goddamn flowers. Every animal is either carnivorous and/or poisonous, with all carnivores hunting and devouring their smaller counterparts. Basically the [[Imperial Guard]]'s version of [[Marbo|Rambo]]/Schwarzenegger/Chuck Norris hybrids, super-survivalists based on the US Green Berets/Marines of the Vietnam War and/or British Royal Marines Commandos. They are the toughest motherfuckers in town who are so ripped some believe they are a race of [[Abhuman|abhumans]]; they are in fact so muscled they can wear flimsy tanktops to show off their muscle and still get the same grade of protection as a [[Cadia|Cadian Shock Trooper]] in full armor, and the most RIPPED of them can get the same degree of protection as Carapace armor from their ROCK HARD ABS.

Keep in mind that flak armor can stop ''lasers'' and carapace armor can block ''bolter shells from Space Marines''. Wonder why the Emprah didn't create a Space Marine chapter out of these badasses... Oh yes, because Marines are forbidden to command armies of mortals, Chapter Worlds are freed from Imperial Tithe, AND Munitorium is sane enough not to lose the source of guys like [[Sly Marbo]].

To make them even more badass, Catachans were later confirmed to be physically and mentally superior to '''ANY''' normal human; basically, generations of breeding only the strongest and most swole badasses has resulted in these guys getting a free genetic upgrade... truly mini-spess mehreens. The swoleness is so real, that Catachans are nicknamed "Baby [[Ogryn]]s" by other guardsmen, although not usually to their faces, as they would then usually end up getting the beating of their lifetime or just outright killed.

A Catachan's favorite weapon is his trusty, simple, utilitarian and old-fashioned knife. If you listen to a Catachan then you'd start to wonder why the Imperium bothers with power swords and nemesis force halberds if steel sharpened on a stone is so good. Some of the various lies told by Catachans include: these knives, which every man and woman and child on the planet has made themselves, are prized throughout the galaxy even more so than the "fancy" and overrated chainswords that take too much maintenance, break often, would probably jam in Catachan flora, and can't be used for hunting because the lubricant would soil the meat. Orks absolutely love these guys - any respectable Ork would trade a chainsword or chop off his own arm to trade for their knives. Especially so for their biggest, more a sword really than a knife - its renown among da Orks is known as "Da Cutta". In return, a Catachan would rather give up his knife arm than his knife. Other favoured weapons amongst Catachans are the Flamer/Heavy Flamer, Sniper Rifle, Shotgun, and Demolition Charge. Using a Heavy Flamer in dense foliage is regarded as both safe and manly by the Catachans, who are balls-out rock hard.

Catachans don't like [[Commissars]] that much, mostly considering them to be arrogant, dolled up pussies. Usually most commissars end up "accidentally" walking into a Catachan trap (aka their knives and lasbolts) or "disappear" in different ways. The one individual to escape from this is [[Colonel Greiss]], by merit of being such a balls-out hardcore motherfucker that the Catachans could not help to respect him. Along with the Cadians they're the last kind of Guardsmen who you can buy GW made plastic models for from the source; for everyone else you either go third party or buy from Forgeworld (if they're the Death Korps anyway. Though it's not too hard to use the Death Korps to stand in for the Steel Legion), and while this may sound great; it's worth remembering that Catachan's models are... pretty infamously ugly (although this has more to do with GW's atrocious studio painting back in 1989, compared to other models from that time they're actually quite detailed and dynamic). With Chenkov and Al'rahem's removal they're also the only source of non-Cadian or Commissariat special characters in the codex.

But its not just prissies that Catachans have been known to have issues with (They use the words "Cadian" and "Mordian" as insults, basically meaning uptight pussies.), even tough n' gruff regiments like the [[Armageddon Ork Hunters]] have been known to have problems with them. This is due to the fact that 3 Catachan regiments were sent by badass [[Yarrick]] himself to help the Ork Hunters during the Third War of Armageddon, and ended up being better at killing Orks than the actual ORK HUNTERS. Apparently the night sky around the Ork Hunter's Cerberus Base was almost permanently lit with forest fires, and Orks could be heard screaming in every direction as the Catachans did their thaang. This obviously caused some jealousy with the Ork Hunters, and a bitter rivalry has existed ever since.

And, to top it all off, while everyone else was shitting their Munitorum-issued breeches when the Cicatrix Maledictum was expanding, the Catachans were busy kicking Chaos ass off their planet after it was exposed to a full scale invasion. Meanwhile other regiments like the [[Mordian Iron Guard]] ended up losing their worlds and getting raped by Tzeentchian Daemons. Upon reaching Catachan and discovering that the natives had already wiped out the invasion, the Indomitus Crusade simply made a pitstop to gain even more [[Imperial Guard|fuel units of awesome]] than they had when they left Terra to retake all the overrun precious space.

==Catachan Devils==
{{Topquote|If it bleeds, we can kill it.|"Dutch", Predator}}
Yeah, yeah, we know that Catachan has a big scary monster called this, but the elite of the already elite Jungle Fighters are also known as Catachan Devils, and form into units known as '''Catachan Devil Squads'''. These are the Swole-Kings, the baddest of the bad, the best Rambos on a planet full of Rambos. These elite warriors are basically specialists, masters of virtually every style of warfare, sent into the most dangerous of situations to perform raids, sabotage enemy war efforts and generally fuck up whatever is unfortunate to come their way. Their esteemed ranks include a man who crushed a Tyranid Ravener's neck with his biceps, and a dude who can take on entire armies. Don't know who i'm talking about? Then read on! (also, what's wrong with you?)

These guys were also a unit in DOW 2's Retribution DLC, they quickly became renowned amongst players as "Anti-Everything Sqauds", as they were capable of fucking up virtually any infantry and light vehicle unit if used correctly. They also had a badass voice actor who spouted out a shit ton of 80's action movie quotes, whilst sounding as if he drank gasoline and ate matches every day of his life.

==Catachan: A ''very, very, very, very, very'' shitty place to live==
[[File:Catachan Scout.jpg|300px|thumb|right|There are women with the Catachan Jungle Fighters, and they're even tougher than their male counterparts since they have to raise the bastards! ]]
{{Topquote|Out there beyond that fence every living thing that crawls, flies, or squats in the mud wants to kill you and eat your eyes for jujubes.|[[Avatar|Colonel Miles Quaritch]]}}

If you think it sucks where you live... well, you know absolutely nothing. Here are just a few reasons why Catachan is the last place in the entire galaxy outside the [[Warp]] or [[Commorragh|certain parts of the Webway]] you would (or should) visit. It is canonically stated as being the worst death world in the '''ENTIRE''' Imperium, nudging out even the likes of Fenris and Cretacia... pussies:

*Humanity is near the '''BOTTOM''' of the food chain.
*Half of the babies are ''eaten violently'' before they are three.
*Half of those survivors are then eaten before they are ten, so you have a 1/4 chance of survival to adulthood.
*You have to be a deadly fighter by the time most humans have learned to spell
*Every living thing on the planet is poisonous, carnivorous, or both. Even the plants, like the Brainleaf that takes over the minds of anyone that comes into contact with its leaves (which it can shoot several yards away), and the Spiker, which turns anyone who is pricked by one of its spines into another Spiker.
*Agriculture is impossible on Catachan's soil. As a result all your food either comes off-world or from whatever animals the hunting party managed to subdue. Do note that because every animal on Catachan is designed to kill, any non-venomous creature you meet will either be a powerful warrior hunter beyond reason or cunningly brutal predator, so dinner is more likely to be the diner when bringing them down.
*Most predators on Catachan aren't just giant monsters like you'd find on [[Space Wolves|Fenris]] or [[Flesh Tearers|Cretacia]]. That would just be too easy. Many of Catachan's most lethal killers are small and seemingly harmless, so they will almost certainly kill you before you even see them. An example of this are the Heretic Ants (named because they start by eating away at men's soles) and the Catachan Barking Toad, which explodes into a cloud of absurdly lethal poison when startled that kills everything within a one kilometer radius- including the toad itself. If that isn't enough, even Power Armour can't protect you. In fact, no known armour can prevent the toads explosion from reducing you and everything else to a pile of steaming goop.
*There is so much dense jungle and so many deadly animals that Catachan does not need a planetary defense system, as the wildlife scares off the Tyranids and the Orks(who actually live there, but try to escape this hellhole as fast as possible). Only Hardcore Khornate Chaos Space Marines were <strike>brave</strike> mad enough to ''attack'' Catachan some time after Great Rift opening, and if you asked them why, they would have said: "Why the fuck not? This planet is fucking amazing for us." Needless to say, all of them feed Catachan's analogue of worms now. The effectiveness of Catachan's ecosystem is ''so'' good that it and the Catachan Jungle Fighters on the planet managed to repel a full-fledged daemon invasion ''when they were caught directly in the middle of the Great Rift''. Yes, not even the reality-bending bullshit of the Warp can stop Catachan and the Devils.
*Some of its wildlife is so deadly, that they have been released on worlds just to prevent invasion. (With hilariously predictable results; Ie: Infestations, killing the poor bastards who were already living there)
*You have to burn the jungle away from your village with a flamethrower at least once a day.
*The planet's major export is soldiers. No, wait. The planet's ''only'' export is soldiers.
*You live at several times Earth's gravity. But it's not THAT many times, or the Catachan people would be a good deal shorter, yet for some reason they are taller than most humans despite having no [[Space Marines|biological modifications]] or [[Adeptus Mechanicus|mechanical modifications]].
*Or in other words: Living on Catachan is like living perpetually in the first stages of a [[Tyranid]] invasion. In fact, some Magos Biologi have theorized that some of the wildlife (such as the Catachan Devils- monstrous half-scorpion half-centipede horrors that are capable of tearing apart tanks on their own) may have actually been Tyranid bio-forms that were separated from the Hive Mind and went feral in the distant past. In an issue of White Dwarf, Games Workshop even had the Catachan Devil as a Tyranid unit.

==Positive side==
There are, however, some positives that balance out all of the bad, bad things about being a guardsman from Catachan. Assuming you live long enough to enjoy them.

*Your muscles will be so thick that you count as having flak armor, even without a shirt on. If you wax your chest and liberally apply oil, it acts similarly to Space Marine armour. Only Catachan veterans know why this works. (it's because almost everything will slide off your abs up to and including battlecannon shells)
*Commissars seem about as intimidating as a grot compared to the horrors you've grown up with.
*You get to kill Commissars
*You are so badass that you use the terms "Cadian" and "Mordian" as an insult.
*You're able to kill [[Orks]] with your bare hands. If that doesn't work, you can use the FUCKHUEG knife you <strike>get</strike> make growing up.
*You might be led by [[Colonel "Iron Hand" Straken|Colonel "I ate a Miral landshark for breakfast" Straken]].
*You might also be led by [[Gunnery Sergeant "Stonetooth" Harker|Gunnery Sergeant "I headlock Tyranid Raveners to death" Harker]].
*You might get surprise help from [[Arden|Trooper "I killed twenty three Orks in one fight with a knife" Arden]]
*You can arm-wrestle a goddamn [[ork]].
*After all you went through growing up on your homeworld, most of the hardships of being in the Imperial Guard will be a joke to you.
*You can make Hollywood Action Heroes look like Justin Bieber by comparison.
*You are better at killing Orks than soldiers who actually specialise in killing Orks.
*It's very easy to get laid; there'd have to be a lot of screwing to keep the human population up on a place like this (only drawback is the competition for a partner would be high). If you [[Musclegirl|like muscles]], you'll like this place.
*Fuckhuge Sword-knife
*[[Sly Marbo]]

==Also see==
*[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XZ-EOg38t1o Catachan Guardsmen dealing with pesky Eldar]

{{40k-Imperial-Regiments}}
{{40k-Planets}}

Mordian Iron Guard

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2602:306:B88B:FB60:3873:4D54:3721:6C86: Undo revision 594627 by 85.27.200.192 (talk)

[[File:Mordian_Iron_Guard.jpg|300px|thumb|right|A planet of soldiers wearing [[Commissar]]-level hats. Let that sink in for a second. Note the [[Judge Dredd|Dredd]] pattern frown.]]
{{Topquote|Discipline is the soul of an army. It makes small numbers formidable; procures success to the weak, and esteem to all.|George Washington}}

The '''Mordian Iron Guard''' are an army of the [[Imperial Guard]], hailing from the planet of Mordian. They are renowned throughout the [[Imperium]] for being right [[Warboss|hard]] bastards, never backing down and prepared to die to the last man as necessary, as well as being from a planet with an adjective for a name (the Earth equivalent would be if Italy were named Italian).

[[Awesome|TL;DR 18th-19th century Prussians mixed with WW1 Italian Arditi in space!]]

They are also renowned for wearing spiffy dress uniforms, although they're not as classy as their equivalents in the [[Praetorian Guard]].
[[File:MordianArmored.jpg|300px|thumb|left|A squad of mechanized Mordians charging from a [[Chimera]]. Also one of the few images of a Mordian with facial hair, looking suspiciously like Union soldiers of the American Civil War.]]
== Tactics ==

There are Imperial Guard regiments that rely on using well-planned strategies and combined arms tactics to overcome their foes. Then there are those that don't rely so much on strategy so much as throwing hordes of guardsmen into the fray, although said guardsmen are often some of the most badass motherfuckers in the entire galaxy. Then there are the Mordians.

The Mordian Iron Guard technically belong in the second category, but are so far around the curve that they start veering back into the first category. The first thing to consider is that they hail from Mordian, a world that actually has two classifications; half Death World, half Hive World.

Normally these two types of worlds are mutually exclusive, since a planet where everything is trying to kill you would put a lot of people off the concept of actually erecting massive towering cities on it. Not so for the Mordians. The planet is tidally-locked (i.e. it spins at the same speed it orbits its sun), so one side of the planet is constantly bleach-roasted by the Mordian sun, and the other side lives in zero degree dick-freezing perpetual night. Additionally, the absence of strong winds on the planet creates a thick and oppressively dark atmosphere (which makes no sense, because temperature differentials that large should cause huge winds as the hot air rises and the cold air sinks -- living in the twilight zone would be like living in a permanent hurricane). The Hive Cities are built on the night part.

Thus, every Mordian native is also a hiver, with years of experience ducking and killing inside narrow corridors where hive gangs exist on every level, and crime is rampant in the places where the sun-don't-shine (i.e. that entire side of the planet). Unsurprisingly, this has earned Mordian the dubious honor of having the highest suicide rate in the Imperium after the destruction of [[Night Lords|Nostramo]]. It got so bad that up until recently there was a notorious chaos uprising and the Mordians had to fight tooth and nail just to keep their semi-hospitable half of the planet from being overrun. Between that and the extremely strict rationing that leaves the planet on the verge of rebellion at all times, the Mordian Iron Guard has learned to practice iron hard discipline (hence their name) and constant regimental routine as part of their secondary role as military police. Nearly every citizen on Mordian has served in the planet's military, as it was the only way to maintain global discipline.

Consequently, [[Commissar]]s find a tour on Mordian as rather boring, and a little intimidating as the Mordians themselves will penalize Commissars that falter in their duties. Again, absorb this for a moment. In [[Krieg|almost]] every other part of the Imperium, Commissar shoots you for lack of discipline or cowardice. On Mordian, You shoot the Commissar for lack of discipline or cowardice. This is then reflected in their form of battle tactics. Rather than ride [[Chimera]]s or wear camouflage, Mordian guardsmen march into battle in brightly-coloured cloth uniforms and bearing equally flashy banners. They then form up into neat firing lines or squares and shoot at their enemies in disciplined volleys. They don't break formation, they don't take cover and they never, ''ever'' retreat. While this is incredibly ballsy even by Imperial Guard balls-of-steel standards, it is also incredibly stupid because on the battlefields of the 41st millennium there are ''oh-so-many ways'' to wipe out massed formations of infantry out in the open. These sorts of tactics were on their way out in the American Civil War (appropriate as Mordians look quite a bit like US Army from that era) when ''caplock minie ball rifles'' and ''rifled muzzle loading cannons'' began to appear. Even [[Space Marines]] will take cover whenever they can. But, somehow, the Mordians still survive their battles and keep going. Considering the horrors the Imperial Guard fights, you have to wonder how their training conditioned them so well. Then again, maybe you ''don't'' want to know.

[[File:Mordian Guardswoman.jpg|200px|thumb|right|Women serve with the Iron Guard as well, and are just as [[-4 Str|hard]] as any of their male counterparts.]]

Although a few sources note that this baffling lack of common sense causes their adversaries to underestimate them, it still doesn't really make up for employing infantry tactics that have long been redundant. That being said, the Mordians do have a few tricks up their sleeves, like flak and carapace armour actually sown into their rigid uniforms (which makes it both elegant AND protective), as well as having heavy armour companies with ''over a dozen'' [[Baneblade]]s '''each'''. They also have 'veteran' companies who wear the incredibly-more-badass darker uniforms who do actually observe real infantry tactics and perform the scout work.

However, one must note that the fact that they're never taking cover means that they're not spending any time not aiming or not firing, meaning that relative to other armies, they could keep you pinned a whole lot more easily. So while they might die off really quickly, they'll do a hell of a lot before they drop. Since their armor has both flak and ''carapace'' armor woven into it,(not represented currently on tabletop) the Mordian Guardsmen are well protected against concussive force, shrapnel, and even against direct fire. So, not only is it a wall of lasers shooting at you, shooting the wall has about as much effect as spitting on a tank. Besides, they probably don't stand in a row, they probably have the first row go prone, the next row squat, the third row crouch, and the fourth row stand(leaving the men in the prone and kneeling more accurate then the men squatting and standing as your lose a third stability point as you get closer to standing). Then they have four rows of lasguns firing in a concentrated barrage at the same target. Supported by a Leman Russ's battle cannon plus sponson and hull-mounted weapons and probably a pintle-mount. Then remember how long and deep the gun line is, given how numerous the Guard is. That isn't even accounting for man-portable mortar teams, vehicle-mounted mortars, basilisks, manticores, and the armored companies of over a dozen baneblades each.

That's scary and is the perfect tactic for the Guard because their reserves have reserves. It also happens to be the perfect tactic against Tyranids and Orks. The Tyranids are simply that numerous and the Orks are specifically stated to miss anything they aim at, so bunching up into a single target is the best defense against them. Maybe good against Necrons, too, since cover really won't protect you against their weapons. Firepower will.

==Fall of Mordian==
The planet Mordian along with the entire [[Stygius Sector]] was invaded by Chaos Forces led by warbands loyal to Tzeentch. The Iron Guard held their ground as reinforcements arrive, but there were too many heretics and slowly the Imperial defenders are being bled dry. (Didn't help that the dead are being raised as zombies or that the Warp claimed several Imperial ships and an entire planet during the conflict.)

Further reinforcements came in as an Eldar Strikeforce from [[Craftworld Ulthwé]] aided the Imperium. Being the cryptic pricks they are, they tell the defenders that they can't win and advised them to leave the sector. (Seeing as the Chaos Invasion is led by the [[Thousand Sons]] under [[Magnus]] as well as [[M'kachen]], they are kinda right). Even though the discipline of the Iron Guard kept them from being overrun, they agreed to retreat, and evacuated what they could. It probably stung, but you'll never see a Mordian getting mopey about it.

{{Template:40k-Imperial-Regiments}}

Athasian Dragon

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One of the many ways that [[Dark Sun]] differs from your traditional [[Dungeons & Dragons]] setting is that there are no native [[Dragon]]s. Oh, there are Athasian Drakes, but those are basically giant feral reptiles with innate elemental psychic powers - the Fire Drake, for example, is basically a T-Rex with pyrokinesis. In fact, there is supposedly only one Dragon in Athas - the Dragon of Tyr.

But that's not quite accurate. See, Athasian Dragons are epic-leveled multiclassed psionicist-defilers who have turned their combined magical powers towards transforming into a superior state. The Dragon of Tyr is the just first psion/defiler to complete the transition, and his former compatriots, the Sorcerer-Kings, are all at some level along the transformation themselves. Indeed, becoming an Athasian Dragon is typically something an epic level character in Dark Sun could seek to do, from part of a sourcebook in 2e to a [[Dragon Magazine]] epic-level prestige class in 3e to an [[Epic Destiny]] in 4e.

Athasian Dragons, needless to say, are nasty, ''nasty'' creatures, with immense physical, arcane and psionic power at their command. In their appearances prior to 4th edition, this was somewhat counterbalanced by the extreme requirements needed to progress through the levels to become a full-fledged dragon, and by the fact that most of those levels allowed the [[Dungeon Master]] to take control of your character whenever they felt like it. On the other hand, achieving even the lowest level of Athasian Dragonhood meant that your character became ageless, as well as gaining increasingly strong combat abilities, the ability to speak any language, along with eventually gaining a devastating breath weapon of superheated sand.

The ritual that creates the Athasian Dragon inspired the only Sorcerer-King to almost complete it, the [[Lich]] Dregoth, to believe it was humanity's ultimate destiny to transform into dragons as a species. His experiments in bringing this about led to the creation of the [[Dray]] race.

==AD&D Athasian Dragons==

The process of becoming an Athasian Dragon is similar but far more destructive than the process to become an [[Avangion]]. The basics are identical; acquire enough experience points to reach the necessary level, cast a spell named ''Dragon Metamorphosis'', offer up the necessary resources, and you're another step along the path. Only human or Half-Elven Defiler/Psionicists of 20th level are eligible. One material component common to all steps is a number of obsidian orbs, all of which must be activated and swallowed before casting the psionic enchantment necessary to advance.

===Metamorphosis Stages and Requirements===

The stages are divided into low, middle, high, and final. As expected of the ascent to the pinnacle of Defiler (any Athasian spellcaster that destructively draws power from plants, almost permanently rendering the ground sterile) power, the details are fairly unpleasant and brutal, even for the one undergoing the transformation who is wracked by incredible pain each time. Of note is that from 25th to 29th level, the Defiler in question goes mad with a lust for destruction due to this pain and the need to complete the transformation, normally resulting in the character spending a lot of time rampaging through the countryside attacking anything alive it can reach (in essence being controlled by the DM).

'''Low (21st - 23rd level)''': The Defiler is merely beginning the metamorphosis. The preparation for casting at these levels requires access to ancient documents, tablets, and scrolls that have never been studied by another defiler. Each of the lower-level steps requires that such materials must be studied for at least eight hours every day for an entire year. The material components must include vast riches (at least 10,000 gp worth of jewels, gems, coins, or artistic treasures), a huge structure where the transformation might take place (which can be reused for all transformations of this group), and no fewer than 1,000 Hit Dice of living creatures for the life-leeching process (this last and similar requirements along the way might be one of the major reasons that most of the Sorcerer-Kings rule over large city-states, so as to have a sufficient stock of "volunteers" no one might miss). The riches vanish and the living creatures are slain one heartbeat after the defiler begins casting. The spell is cast from the deep interior of the structure where the caster will actually transform. No other beings may be present at the instant of casting.

'''Middle (24th - 26th level)''': The preparation time extends to two years. During this time, the caster visits a powerful creature on an elemental plane for three days of every 15. The material components include fewer riches (at least 5,000 gp) but more(!) living creatures (no fewer than 2,000 Hit Dice). A new structure must be built, which can be used for all three middle level transformations.

'''High (27th, 28th, and 29th level)''': The high levels of Dragon Metamorphosis must take place on either an Elemental or the [[Astral Plane]]. No structure or riches are required, but the caster must travel to the plane of choice with no fewer than 200 Hit Dice of living creatures from the Prime Material plane. The living creatures must be no fewer than 10 Hit Dice each and must willingly travel to the plane and participate (i.e., die) in the casting. Casting time is 24 hours, and at least three powerful beings from that plane must cooperate for that time.

'''Final (30th level)''': This stage requires no preparation time and but a single material component; the slain body of a good creature defeated in single combat. The victim must be intelligent, have at least 20 Hit Dice, and be capable of casting 9th-level wizard spells or 7th-level priest spells, all of which means that if one of the PCs is high-level enough, s/he could even become a target for a Dragon looking for this final component in its transformation. The spell must be cast over the fallen victim within one hour of the defeat; the casting time is one turn.

<gallery>
File:Athasian dragon metamorphosis 2E.jpg|An illustration of the gradual change
File:Dragon of Tyr 4E.jpg|The Dragon of Tyr, the only known dragon in Athas
File:Athasian Dragongirl.jpg|Because of course there's a [[monstergirl]] version
</gallery>
[[Category:Dungeons & Dragons]][[Category:Dark Sun]][[Category:Dragons]] [[Category:Dungeons & Dragons Classes]]

Avangion

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If turning into an [[Athasian Dragon]] is the natural end point of an epic-level [[Defiler]]-[[Psion]], then the Avangion is the opposite end of the spectrum: a powerful Preserver fully internalizing their psionic studies, and transforming into a being of energy and light.

While statted out back in 2e alongside its Defiler counterpart, it's pointed out that ''unlike'' the Dragon of Tyr, the creation of an Avangion is just a ''theoretical possibility''; no one has actually completed the necessary steps to turn into one as, much like the phases of turning into a Dragon, each phase is fraught with the chance to outright ''fail''.

On the bright side, at the very least none of the phases turn the Avangion into a raging ball of [[RAGE]] and [[Rip and Tear|MURDER]].

Not for the lack of trying however. So far, there's only a single named NPC who's working towards becoming an Avangion: Oronis, the Sorcerer-King of Kurn, the only of his fellows who felt remorse at the atrocities he committed under [[Rajaat]], and worked to truly make up for what he did. Depending on the source, he's already halfway there, or managed to completely complete his apotheosis into one.

If you're one of the ones working under the idea that Oronis actually ''succeeded'', then his very existence becomes a veritable game-changer for Tyr, and the setting in general, as it represents [[Noblebright|the first real chance for the environment of Athas to completely recover]]. Not that it makes things any easier -- not only is the Dragon of Tyr still around, but Oronis would stand alone against all other Sorcerer-Kings and their forces. But in Athas, some hope is better than no hope at all.

==AD&D Avangions==
As you might expect from the above, becoming an Avangion is '''not''' fucking easy. To qualify for the Avangion "class", you need to be a [[human]] [[Wizard|Preserver]] of 20th level with [[Intelligence]] 18, [[Wisdom]] 17, [[Constitution]] 15 and [[Charisma]] 16.

Assuming you qualify, advancing requires a two-part process; gain the amount of XP, as indicated in the table below, and then, when you have enough XP to gain a level, you gotta successfully cast the spell ''Preserver Metamorphosis''. This gets harder and harder to cast as you gain in levels, requiring you to engage in various acts to restore life to Athas on an ever-grander scale; the "Dragon Kings" sourcebook introduces the new "Psionic Enchantments" (ritualistic 10th level spells) Prolific Forestation and Prolific Vegetation specifically to be used to qualify for the higher levels of Avangion. Assuming both parts go off without a hitch, and you survive a System Shock roll that casting Preserver Metamorphosis requires, you gain a level in Avangion.

;Avangion Experience Levels
{| class=wikitable
!Character level ||Avangion XP Required ||Hit Dice
|-
|21||0||+10d4
|-
|22||375,000 ||+5d4
|-
|23||750,000 ||+4d4
|-
|24||1,125,000 ||+3d4
|-
|25 ||1,500,000 ||+3d4
|-
|26 ||1,875,000 ||+4d4
|-
|27 ||2,500,000 ||+5d6
|-
|28 ||3,600,000 ||+6d4
|-
|29 ||4,800,000 ||+8d4
|-
|30 ||6,400,000 ||+10d4
|}
Points rolled on Hit Dice are rolled add directly to the avangions hit point total; Constitution modifiers are added per die rolled.

What happens if you fail? Well, in that, avangion metamorphosis is much more forgiving than the [[Athasian Dragon]] metamorphosis. You lose all the XP you were trying to turn into a new level, and have to restock on XP before you can try it again. Annoying, yes, but considering the lethality of its counterpart, most players can live with it. You still need to make a System Shock check to survive the casting, but at least a mistake won't kill you the way it will your counterparts.

As the avangion gains levels, it physically mutates, changing into what will become its new form and gaining abilities based on what level it's reached.

===Metamorphosis Stages===
[[File:Avangion metamorphosis 2E.jpg|thumb|right|An illustration of the gradual change]]
'''21st-level avangion:''' This first stage of the change from human to avangion is very subtle. Its physical appearance changes only slightly; more noble features to its face and a silver or golden sheen to its eyes. Armor Class is reduced to AC 9, and the process grants a magic resistance of 10% . The avangion's THAC0 falls to 10. Additionally, the avangion becomes eternal; it no longer ages and cannot die of old age. It also gains four permanently active spell-like abilities: ''Tongues'', ''Know Alignment'', ''ESP'' and ''Detect Lies''. Regardless of level, an avangion saves as a 21+-level wizard.

'''22nd-level avangion:''' At this level, the skin takes on the metallic glow of its eyes and the hair turns bright white, but the character is still quite human in appearance. AC improves to 8. Magical protections give magic resistance of 15% and immunity to weapons that aren't of +1 enchantment or better. THAC0 remains 10.

'''23rd-level avangion:''' Any concealment of the character's true form is lost with this level and the sprouting of enormous gossamer wings from the back and shoulders. The wings themselves, filmy and nearly transparent, span 20 feet. The eyes become bright silver at this stage, and the skin glitters in the sunlight. Its newfound wings let the avangion fly with MV 24. AC improves to 7 and magic resistance to 20 %. THAC0 improves to 9.

'''24th-level avangion:''' Now well on its way to true avangion form, the character's original human appearance is increasingly vague. All hair vanishes from the body, and webs of filmy winglike material form between its arms and torso and its fingers and toes. Its existing wings form multiple folds but can be extended to a 25-foot span. The avangion's natural Armor Class improves to AC 6, and its magic resistance becomes 25%. Also, it can only be hit by weapons of +2 or better enchantment. The avangion's THAC0 remains 9.

'''25th-level avangion:''' With this level , the avangion's human form decreases drastically, becoming lost in the wispy folds of its wings, which can now extend to a 30-foot span. The character's jaw retracts and its eyes grow on its oval head. Its arms and legs grow far thinner and can no longer support its weight; the character can no longer walk, but instead floats and flies at all times. The character can no longer wield hand-held weapons or make any physical attacks of its own. However, the avangion's magical nature continues to improve. Armor Class becomes 4, and magical resistance rises to 30%. THAC0 becomes 8.

'''26th-level avangion:''' The avangion becomes a far more mobile yet graceful creature. Its incredible shining wings now span up to 40 feet, with its central body nearly lost in their folds - the avangion can now fly with a MV of 36. AC improves to 2, magic resistance becomes 40%, and only magical weapons of + 3 or better enchantment cause it damage. THAC0 remains 8.

'''27th-level avangion:''' The character's original human form is nearly lost. The creature has only a torso and head, nearly lost in the endless folds of its gossamer wings that now span 50 feet when fully extended. The avangion's increasingly magical nature gives it AC 0, 50% magic resistance, and immunity to weapons of less than +4 magical enchantment. THAC0 becomes 7. Also, enlightenment associated with its incredible power gives a + 1 bonus to its Wisdom score.

'''28th-level avangion:''' The avangion first takes on its aura at this level, a radiance of brilliant light that extends 90 feet from it in all directions. The aura acts as a permanent protection from evil spell and dispels all magical darkness within it. The avangion's wingspan increases to 65 feet, and its movement rate improves to MV 48. Only weapons of the finest enchantment, +5, can strike the avangion's physical form. AC improves to -2 and magic resistance climbs to 60%. THAC0 remains 7. At this level, the avangion receives another +1 bonus to Wisdom.

'''29th-level avangion:''' The aura grows to a 150' radius. In addition to previous effects, the aura acts as a ray of enfeeblement on all evil creatures within it. Armor Class improves to -4 and magic resistance to 70%. Physically, the avangion grows still more; its wings, now with an 80-foot span, nearly envelop its torso and head. From a distance it appears as a cloud of interwoven wings. The Wisdom score increases by 1 at this level.

'''30th-level avangion:''' Now in its final form, the avangion's cloud of overlapping wings can extend to 90 feet. The incredible aura extends to a 200' radius and, in addition to existing effects, acts as a permanent globe of invulnerability. Mobility increases to MV 60, Armor Class to -6, and magic resistance to 80%. At its final stage of transformation, the avangion gains an additional 2 points of Wisdom.

===Preserver Metamorphosis Requirements===
'''Low (21st, 22nd, and 23rd level):''' A preserver feels a calling within when he has earned 75% of the experience needed for the next level. The preserver leaves the company of his fellows and seeks isolation. The preparation time for the spell constitutes the entire period necessary for the preserver to earn the final 25% of those experience points, adventuring completely alone. If the preserver earns any experience points with the aid of another character, all experience points are lost down to the minimum required for the current level. Failure to gain experience in a solitary fashion, in the DM's judgment, means the spell may fail when cast. For low-level metamorphosis, the preserver must spend the isolation period gathering physical remains of the enemies of life, usually those of high level defilers - their bodily remains, destructive belongings or artifacts, ash from their spellcasting, etc. These items are evidence of devotion to life and the land. The spell must then be cast at night, beneath the light of both Athasian moons. The casting time is six hours. Any interruption results in spell failure. The preserver may have other characters present during casting.

'''Middle (24th, 25th, and 26th level):''' At intermediate levels, the preserver again hears a call for isolation when 75% of each level's experience points have been earned. During this preparation time, the preserver must attain absolute isolation; any contact with intelligent beings who aren't foes to be defeated negates the spell preparation, and the wizard reverts to the 75% base line of the isolation period. The material components at the middle levels are gifts gathered from no fewer than three powerful good creatures during isolation. The powerful creatures realize the consequences of contact for the preserver, so they leave the gifts to be found after the preserver achieves extremely dangerous or important goals. The material component for the spell (not consumed in casting) is a single tree or bush personally saved by the preserver from defiler magic destruction. The casting time is 12 hours. At the time of casting, there must be living vegetation for at least one mile in all directions, untainted by defiler ash or evil creatures.

'''High (27th, 28th, and 29th level):''' Unlike previous level advancements, the preserver feels no calling toward isolation at high levels. On the contrary, at 75% experience point level, the wizard instead collects a core group of companions no fewer than eight in number and of at least 10 levels or Hit Dice each. All the companions must be of good alignment. The preserver must spend the preparation time with these characters, earning the remaining 25% of experience in the company of at least one of these companions; failure to do so forces the preserver to revert to the current level's 75% base line of experience. The material components are a single gift from each of the companions in the core group. During the casting of the spell, the preserver must have the aid of a single companion for the entire length of the ceremony. If the companion is not absolutely good, the spell fails and the companion is slain in the release of failed magical energy. Companions cannot repeat the process with a single preserver - new companions must be found for the 27th, 28th, and 29th levels.

'''Final (30th level):''' To cast this spell, the preserver must make an area of lush vegetation (crops, scrubgrass, forests, or any combination) at least five miles in diameter. The preparation time for the spell equals the time it takes the preserver to create these lush lands. At the time of casting, the lush lands must be free of evil creatures. The material components for the spell are a diamond of no less than 10,000 gp value with which to capture the life-giving qualities of sunlight, a stone tomb large enough to hold the preserver's body, and a perfectly sealed glass case built around the tomb. The casting time is one round. Upon casting, the preserver/avangion, diamond, and stone tomb disappear, bound for planes unknown. The DM then secretly rolls 2d12 - this is the number of months before the return of the preserver, in final avangion form, to the glass case. If the glass case is damaged in the meantime, the avangion is lost to oblivion. Only the DM knows how long the final stage takes. The player uses another character from the character tree in the interim.

==4e Avangions==
[[File:Avangion 4E.jpg||thumb|right|4th edition illustration of an Avangion, possibly of [[thri-kreen]] stock.]]
Naturally, something this awesome couldn't be left out of Dark Sun's [[4e]] revival, and so the Avangion appeared as an [[Epic Destiny]] alongside its [[Athasian Dragon]] counterpart (here called the "Dragon King" epic destiny). Membership was simple; reach 21st level in any Arcane Class.

At level 21, it gives you the features Avatar of Preservation (you can't use Arcane Defiling anymore, but you become unaging (so you'll never die of old age) and you gain a bonus on death saving throws equal to half your highest ability score modifier) and Perfection of Mind (increase your choice of two stats - [[Intelligence]], [[Wisdom]] or [[Charisma]] - by +2 each). At level 24, you gain the Avangion Transformation feature: this gives you a Fly speed equal to your movement speed, low-light vision, the ability to speak Supernal, and the ability to understand all spoken & written languages. Also, as a free action, you can shed bright light for 5 squares; whilst this aura is up, you can add the Radiant damage type to your attacks. If that's not enough holy light for you, at level 26, you gain the Daily Utility power "Wings of Gold", which creates a 5 square aura of holy light around you. In this aura, enemies with Vulnerability: Radiant count as having Vulnerability: All, your allies that start or end their turn in your aura can make a saving throw to end any effect on them, even if a save normally wouldn't remove it. Bloodied & dying allies that start in the aura of your Wings of Gold gain 10 hit points. Its ultimate feature, level 30's Avangion Rising, means that whenever you or an ally that you can see drops to 0 or fewer HP, you can spend a healing surge as a free action to heal that creature. If you do this, the target immediately gains hit points equal to your healing surge value plus your highest ability modifier.

[[Category:Dungeons & Dragons]][[Category:Dark Sun]] [[Category:Dungeons & Dragons Classes]]