BTW, anyone think it would've sounded better if the special effect of the destruction varied with the ethical alignment of the celestial? The Twisting fit Isolde's chaotic nature but it seems likes it should be quite different with, say, an LG solar-- perhaps instead of degenerating, matter starts to appear to rarify.
[An aside: the 3.5 SRD seems to have gotten rid of the eladrin in favor of having the devas, planetars, and solars be any ethical flavor of good. Would Isolde be a CG deva in this case?]
Originally posted by Brandi
I was re-reading that part (on p. 106) and wondering if JWM wrote the info or someone else did; the destructive effect of a celestial's reality wrinkle does sound like a more powerful version of The Twisting.
I did, and yes, that section was the first chance I had to lay out what would be happening to the people around Isolde if she wasn't continually concentrating to manifest the Twisting.
Originally posted by Brandi
BTW, anyone think it would've sounded better if the special effect of the destruction varied with the ethical alignment of the celestial? The Twisting fit Isolde's chaotic nature but it seems likes it should be quite different with, say, an LG solar-- perhaps instead of degenerating, matter starts to appear to rarify.
I'd say this is a good idea.
One also needs to remember that the Twisting was not so much because of Isolde's chaotic nature, but because of Isolde's core reason for existing: Punishing the guilty and evil and protecting/rewarding the innocent and good. Like the domains reflect the darklords, so does the Reality Wrinkles around celestials and fiends reflect their natures. Or that's at least how it worked conceptually in the Old Days of Second Edition.
(Edit: John posted as I was posting...)
Originally posted by Writer of Stuff
(I have no ideea who did what on the DMG.)
I can fill in a few blanks. My work is mainly toward the front of the book. I wrote the introduction, first off. In Chapter One, Andrew Cermak originally wrote the Crossover Campaigns and Thirteen Tips for Tension sections for Secrets of the Dread Realms; I expanded on his material for this book. In the Dramatic Techniques section, I honestly don't remember who wrote the original pacing section for SotDR; it was either Cermak or myself, and I think there was some back and forth back in the day. Anyway, I greatly expanded on that material here, adding more examples and so forth. I'm afraid I don't remember who wrote the Portraying NPCs, Sinister Scores, and Cut Scenes sections; I just did my usual "shadow developer" work while lacing the chapter together, so to speak.
In Chapter Two, Andrew Wyatt wrote the section on Sinkholes of Evil -- I feel like I'm forgetting something else he did. I wrote most of the Expanding the Mists section. That grew from a core of material originally written for Secrets of the Dread Realms, but it's greatly expanded. Longtime SotK visitors may recognize that some of these rules originated with questions readers asked Azalin (that was the advantage of taking the time to carefully consider what you asked Azalin; insightful questions often directly affected future releases). In the Prestige Class section, however, I didn't write the alterations on the prestige classes that are new to the DMG in 3.5, however. I also wrote the NPC Classes section, which is new to this book.
(A typo slipped in during editing, btw; in the "Notes on NPC Design" sidebar, note that NPCs using NPC classes use Table 2-12 on pg. 116 of the RL DMG to determine their wealth value, not Table 4-23 in the DMG 3.5.)
Oh, right; Wyatt, you wrote the section on psionics, yes? (I'm sure he'll turn up here eventually.) And I believe that section expands on some material Andrew Hackard wrote for us back when the PsiHB came out.
I have who wrote the Chapter Four material on the tip of my tongue, but I just can't think of it, unfortunately.
Lastly, Chapter Five includes a few magic items the Kargatane wrote for SotDR. Oh, except that at some point in between it looks like the Scroll of Return went from being a major artifact to a standard magic item. I'd recommend DMs change it back.
Sometimes I've thought it'd be an interesting house rule if celestials actually tended to have smaller reality wrinkles than fiends, but it may be that I'm viewing the nature of the wrinkle differently than it was originally conceived. With a fiend, I envision that the fiend's own inherent evil pushes aside the tainted nature of Ravenloft like a man might displace water if he were walking through it; conversely, Ravenloft's nature might not part so easily against powerful good because of the interference of the Dark Powers-- sort of like if the man were walking through mud/jello/whatever more viscous medium you like...