User blog:Ranime Codexer/Campaign Settings

An old post to my Talk page had a user commenting on just how I "knew" the Solamnic Knights and the Cannibal Halflings in Lavok's Sphere were from other settings. They brought up a good point about how other fans without a comparable experience with or understanding of the AD&D multiverse might find such articles confusing.

I have no idea how to address this problem. I have no idea where to even begin making a page or a category to try and explain the Campaign Settings of AD&D and the complex multiverse they co-inhabit within the confines of the game. But I figured I could at least make a blog post to provide some basic understanding of this multiverse.

TSR promoted three major campaign settings as the "core" of Dungeons & Dragons; the Forgotten Realms (which is the world where the Baldur's Gate story takes place, on the planet Toril), Greyhawk, and Dragonlance.

Greyhawk, set on the planet "Oerth", is the most similar to the Forgotten Realms, although it predates the latter setting by several years. The major difference is that Greyhawk is generally more "low fantasy" in flavor; the gods have less of an overt presence than they do in the Forgotten Realms, and the world revolves more around the trials and struggles of humanity. In Shadows of Amn, the merchant Deidre carries an enchanted set of robes called the Robe of Vecna; these refer to Vecna, a powerful Oerthian lich who ultimately ascended to become the God of Necromancy, Undeath, Black Magic and Secrets in Greyhawk.

Dragonlance was the youngest of TSR's "core" campaign settings, set on the planet "Krynn", with the greatest emphasis taking place on the continent of "Ansalon". Its defining traits were that it was comparably low magic to its counterparts, its "chivalric romance" tropes, the increased prominance of dragons in the setting (to the extent that the major antagonistic race of the setting was not orcs, which do not exist there, but draconians - a race of slave-warriors created from the corrupted eggs of metallic dragons), and the overt influence of the gods on the world... usually to the world's detriment. The most notable reference to Dragonlance in the Baldur's Gate games is in Shadows of Amn, where the party encounters a trio of Solamnic Knights in Lavok's Sphere. Solamnia is a country within Ansalon traditionally ruled over by Arthurian-style knights, who dedicate themselves to pursuing the cause of good and righteousness; "Solamnic" is the term meaning "of Solamnia".

As the core settings, there are a number of instances of the Realms, Greyhawk and Dragonlance crossing over in the tabletop games, both in game supplements, magazine articles, and even novels. This eventually gave rise to the setting of Spelljammer; a light-hearted "space fantasy" setting revolving around a fantastical version of space travel, where the standard D&D races (and many more exotic ones) use enchanted ships called Spelljammers to travel between different planets. Such space travel is particularly heavy around the Crystal Spheres (fantasy solar systems) of Toril, Oerth and Krynn. Spelljammer is the setting with the most prominent easter egg, in the form of Minsc and his animal companion: Boo the Miniature Giant Space Hamster. To cut a long story short, Krynn is inhabited by a race of gnomes whose entire species is made up of bungling incompetent mad scientists. Their spelljammers are most frequently powered by the efforts of hamsters specially bred into giant rodent behemoths roughly between oxen and elephant sized. Such is their mentality that, having bred these Giant Space Hamsters from ordinary hamster stock, they promptly bred a subspecies of them back down to their original small size again, just because the idea popped into their empty heads.

Another campaign setting that does receive a mention over the course of the Baldur's Gate games is Dark Sun, a grim and gritty post-apocalyptic setting on the world of Athas, which has been reduced to a burned out wasteland by a series of destructive genocidal wars fought with the use of life-draining magic, known as Defiling. Many of the common fantasy races that still survive on Athas have diverged into very unusual forms; elves are tall, lean, wasteland-running nomadic thieves and traders, whilst dwarves are hairless laborers often enslaved and forcibly crossbred with humans for their suitability as a slave race. Perhaps the most infamous of these changed races is the halflings of Athas, who are vicious tribal barbarians with a taste for the flesh of non-halfling races. In Shadows of Amn, Lavok's Sphere features a battle against a small tribe of these cannibal halflings, obviously plucked from their homeland in Lavok's travels.

Finally, the one setting that has the most references to it is Planescape. This "weird fantasy" D&D setting is based around the wider multiverse of D&D as a whole, focusing on the Elemental and Outer Planes - those regions where such creatures as elementals, celestials and fiends arise. Central to the setting is Sigil, a fantastical city that exists outside of the known multiverse but which is linked to the entire multiverse by an infinite array of interdimensional portals, making it the ultimate multiversial hub/melting pot. Sigil is (or was, at the time of AD&D 2nd edition) dominated by groups known as "The Factions"; militant cults revolving around a central philosophy as to "the purpose/meaning of existence" and seeking to gain power to prove their beliefs were accurate. Most references to Planescape come during the events of Shadows of Amn, and consist of the following:
 * The Sigil Troupe are a band of entertainers who, as their name suggests, originally come from Sigil. This is why at least two of their members - Haer'Dalis and Raelis Shai - are tieflings, as this species originated in the Planescape setting.
 * The Sigil Troupe are said to be hiding on Toril after insulting Duke Rowan Darkwood, Factol (leader) of the Fated - this is a Planescape Faction whose philosophy revolves around the principle of "might makes right"; if you want it, take it, because being strong enough to do so proves you have the right to it.
 * The quest Rescue Raelis and Haer'Dalis from the Planar Prison begins with Raelis attempting to summon an Astral Conduit, a phenomena of the Astral Plane that serves as portal between different worlds or planes.
 * Haer'Dalis is a self-professed member of the Doomguard, a Faction that reveres the concept of entropy and the inevitable annihilation of all things.
 * The item description for Wave notes that one theory to explain its disappearance is that its last owner lost in a gambling pit whilst in a sojourn to Sigil.
 * The merchant Deidre in the Adventurer Mart sells a number of items that reference either Planescape as a setting or characters from Planescape: Torment, a Black Isle CRPG set in Planescape. These items consist of: Sensate Amulet (refers to the Society of Sensation, a Faction devoted to the concept of experiencing as much as one can of all the multiverse has to offer), the Harmonium Halberd (refers to the Harmonium, a Faction dedicated to the sanctity of Order and Law, even if that means promoting tyranny and oppression "for the greater good"), the Mercykiller Ring (refers to the Mercykillers, a Faction dedicated to attaining true Justice by purging themselves of all traces of mercy), Dak'kon's Zerth Blade (the weapon of Dak'kon the githzerai zerth, a companion in PS:T) and Vhailor's Helm (the helmet of Vhailor, an undead Mercykiller and potential companion in PS:T).
 * When the player speaks to Aphril, she may mention Sigil itself alongside its ruler the Lady of Pain, and also may mention a "walking corpse speaking to a pillar of skulls" - this is referring to the protagonist character of Planescape: Torment and a sequence from late in the game.