Now what concerns me is that looking at GAZIV, Borca entry, I do not see Vor Zyiden detailed anywhere. I know it didn't make the cut, that's what John (Mangrum) said about it, and he sounded surprised too.
Now I wanna ask WHY was Vor Zyiden AND IVLIS left out?
Please, do not start telling me "lack of space" because frankly I do not buy it. Go and check your copy of GAZIV, and you'll see that the last page of the Borca section is HALF BLANK! Given the fact that each city normally takes up 1 column (max 1 column and a half), maybe it was indeed not enough for both cities, but why not trying to cram it in cutting here and there?
Okay, let's suppose it was one full page... there's half page available, you just have to find another half somewhere else in the Borca section. IMpossible you dare say? Ah! Look at the pictures then! 4 not really astonishing images that take up half a page EACH! Simply remove that crap where the two guys are dueling and you've got enough space! Does it add to the book? Is this pic so useful or tied to the text that could make the whole section ruined if it was not there??
C'mon! I dare say it adds more an entry detailing a city! And if you really wanted to put in all those pics, why didn't you simply REDUCE THEIR SCALE?? They are not maps! (don't get me started on the gaz maps now.. must.. resist... the temptation...) :embarrass
For all that matters, I only appreciated the image of the banquet in the Borca chapter! All the others we could have done away with, getting instead more Dread Possibilities (which IIRC have been cut in the dozens too).
Can somebody please explain me why this has happened? And why so many dull images appeared in GAZIII to booth? Instead of giving us updated versions of the domain maps, we got silly pictures and useless resizing of the original core book map... aww...
Final point: I already asked it but since I got no reply, I'll ask it again. Could Mr Mangrum please tell me HOW he would have done Mordent in the gaz? He seemed to have so many ideas for it and was deeply upset when he got Borca instead.. and now his ideas shouldn't be covered under non-disclosure agreement, isn't it? ;)
WARNING! Every comment that follows is absolutely PERSONAL.
I think Mordent is one of the worst scenarios presented ever. It should be a land where one can have recurring adventures, but as it stands in GAZIII it's just boring. It fades if compared to Richemulot in the same book, for example! Even one-shot realms like Forlorn are more attractive and better introduced
End of rant :D :P
And seeing how the majority of the text was written In Character...
As for Mordent, like I said the last time, I don't really have anything to offer you. It's not like I'm sitting on a personal, unpublished draft of the Mordent chapter, and it's been years since I thought about it.
Here's a handful of details that I can remember:
* The Mordentshire sect of the Church of Ezra would have been fully detailed on par (and to mesh) with the rest of the Church as presented in the setting. (See "Anchors of Faith" in one of the Books of S- for some of the missing info.)
* I would have spent some time discussing the Border Ethereal (aka the Spirit World, aka the Other Side) as an adventure setting. Maybe toss in some seance rules or something.
* I was going to talk a bit about the Timothys still living in southern Mordent, where the family has a general reputation as being surly, backwoods troublemakers at best. That would have included a bit on the aged patriarch of the Timothy clan, Nathan Timothy's father, whose name escapes me.
* Would have pulled I10 fully into setting continuity. (I think that mostly did come to pass in the final product).
* I was going to include a bit on a cell of the Guardians situated near Mordentshire (who guard the Transubstantial Ring). I might not have delved into deep detail, however, since I was proposing a separate book on the Guardians at the time, where they would have been fully explored.
* The revelations about Godefroy and the House on Gryphon Hill that I wanted to make (the house-as-spiritual-vortex, Godefroy's unseen activity and brutality), I'd already made in Secrets of the Dread Realms. Probably would have built on that a bit more.
* Probably would have focused more on fleshing out Mordentshire as a PC hub than on adding new communities. Would have talked about Saulbridge Sanitarium and the old caves riddling the northern point.
* Before 3E RL came along, I'd been pondering an adventure that ended with some changes to Godefroy's curse, which I might have implemented here, most likely as a dread possibility. I would have considered it, anyway.