Nentir Vale - Best of D&D 4e

A farmstead burns in The Reaverns of Harkenwold

Best of 4th Edition, Part 5 - The Nentir Vale

In previous Best of 4th Edition posts, I've talked about a couple locations that were ripe for adventuring, Harkenwold and the Chaos Scar.  But, I did not talk about the larger setting, the Nentir Vale.

Let me just put this out there...

In many ways, the Nentir Vale is the best setting available in D&D.

This is coming from a guy who has lived and breathed Greyhawk for most of my life (and a fair amount of Forgotten Realms). The Nentir Vale started its life as nothing more than few paragraphs describing the region around Fallcrest, an example "home base" town in the Dungeon Master's Guide. However, more bits of Nentir Vale backstory and lore were published in 4th Edition adventures such as the Keep on the Shadowfell, Thunderspire Labyrinth, and the Reavers of Harkenwold. I love Nentir Vale so much, I'm currently running my 5th Edition campaign in the setting.

A Tabula Rasa Sandbox Toolkit

As noted, the Nentir Vale is not burdened by a lot of canon or detailed down to smallest the villages and towns. A duchy here, a city-state there, but mostly only vaguely defined geography. The map contains a variety of terrain with a few dots on the map. Temple of Yellow Skulls. Ruins of Fastormel. Raven Roost. Kalton Manor. Kobold Hall. The Sword Barrows. Guardmore Abbey. The Keep on the Shadowfell... What are these places? No one really knows...

Nentir Vale map from 4th Edition Dungeon Master's Guide

Ok, it is true that some of these locations eventually got their own adventures, but for the most part, the setting is still a largely undefined sandbox within which the DM can build their own sand castles.

To me, Nentir Vale feels a lot like the original Greyhawk map folio or the very, very early days of the Forgotten Realms where there are swaths of land and map features which are largely undefined. However, even Greyhawk feels "settled" by comparison when you look at all the political borders. By comparison Forgotten Realms is over burdened with canon and detail after 30 years. Nentir Vale feels fresh and open. There are even maps of the larger world of Nerrath if you desire more huge tracts of land.

Fallcrest

Artist: Brandon Kruse, D&D Doodles

I've already written about my Reavers of Harkenwold campaign and how my players enjoyed that corner of the Vale. Fallcrest is another wonderful backdrop with a variety of hooks and adventure locations. Fallcrest sits upon a broken plateau with an upper and lower city. Could some natural or magical disaster have created the elevation difference between the city halves? Much of the lower city in ruins, but it is unclear whether the it is the result of Orc incursions in the Vale, or other cataclysms that may have befallen the city. It's up to you to decide!

A number of locations are defined in the Dungeon Master's Guide with several adventure hooks. Further hooks and political intrigues are detailed in Monster Vault: Threats to the Nentir Vale. However, like much in the Vale, Fallcrest has a large canvas upon which the DM can fill in the details. I love this city. It's large enough to have lots of different encounter options, while still not feeling so massively sprawling that it is overwhelming for the DM to detail.

Points of Light

The points of light concept from 4th Edition is one which brings D&D back toward its roots. Life in town is relatively safe... but the wilderness is not. You take your life into your hands when traveling outside of the safety of your home, even along important trade routes. Civilization, for the most part, has fallen into a dark age leaving behind the ruins of the past. There are still small, sporadic kingdoms, but no vast empires or major political powers. Leaders hold mainly onto smaller parcels of land and rule locally.

Factions and NPCs

 Monster Vault: Threats to the Nentir Vale took the Nentir Vale lore to the next level. As a creature catalog, it was an excellent resource for building non-homogeneous encounter groups. However, the absolute beauty of this supplement was how much NPC lore it contained.

Whether it is Calastryx, the three-headed red dragon, the savage Bloodspear Orcs, the warring Treants of the Winterbole Forest, or the druids of Harken's Heart, there are a multitude of unique villains and faction groups which the PCs may encounter directly or indirectly through their agents.

Take this entry from Vestapalk for example:

Rousted from his lair in the Cairngorm Peaks by dark visions, the green dragon Vestapalk and his kobold wyrm-priest companion are bound by what they believe to be a common destiny.

Threats to the Nentir Vale is a supplement book done right. Not only did it improve upon the monster mechanics for D&D 4e, it is filled to the brim with the kind of setting fluff that sets a DM's imagination on fire. Even if you never played (or ever plan to play) D&D 4th Edition, this book is an amazing read for ideas and campaign hooks.

Final Thoughts

Although the Nentir Vale never got its own full setting book, plenty of setting detail can be gleaned from lore within the Dungeon Master's Kit, Monster Vaults, Hammerfast and Vor Rukoth supplements and occasionally the pages of Dragon and Dungeon PDFs published under D&D Insider. Taken all together, the Nentir Vale is a rich setting filled with potential plot hooks, but sparse enough for DM's to paint in their own details.

Postscript: An amazing collection of Nentir Vale setting lore has been posts on The Piazza. This is your first go-to for a Nentir Vale based campaign.

PPS: Read about more things I love from D&D 4th Edition...

D&D: Eberron for 5th Edition is a Seismic Shift

Wizards of the Coast announced not just one, but two new campaign settings for D&D 5th Edition. The Wayfinder’s Guide to Eberron is an PDF update release through the DM’s Guild for $20.

Eberron was originally introduced during D&D’s 3rd Edition and remained popular even during the D&D 4e rule set. Releasing this update through the DM’s Guild instead via print will be sure to upset some fans, but make a lot of business sense from Wizards’ perspective.

1. It allows them to gauge interest in the setting without the massive costs of publishing a hardback book. Assuming interest is strong, Wizards may offer a hardcover print-on-demand version through DM’s Guild. (Mike Mearls has already confirmed a POD version will be available when the rules are out of beta).

2. It opens up another setting to the DM’s Guild creators aside from Forgotten Realms and Ravenloft. This is especially nice for those with magic-tech ideas that might not fit more traditional D&D fantasy genre.

This is a seismic shift for Wizards of the coast, since no other official 5th Edition product has been offered direct-to-consumer through the DM’s Guild. There are some drawbacks with this move, though.

As noted, fans of the setting may feel slighted that Eberron is not getting a print release while Ravnica is. Additionally, the Friendly Local Game Stores may feel a bit of trepidation as this is the first direct-to-consumer offering from Wizards of the Coast. Up until today, no official D&D 5th Edition product has been offered as a PDF. If I were a bricks & mortar retailer, I might be somewhat unsettled by this development (while feeling somewhat calmed that Ravnica is coming -- more on that later).

Other Updates to Come?

For my part, I am immensely excited at the prospect. I’m not a big fan of the Eberron setting, but this development means there may be hope for other 5th Edition updates that are unlikely to get a hardback book. Greyhawk, Dragonlance, Dark Sun, and Planescape are all likely candidates for a PDF-only release.

Greyhawk hasn't seen an official release for... well, longer than most people can remember. Dragonlance had a major update during the 3rd Edition and Dark Sun got its own 4th Edition hardback... but any one of these could be a nice outreach to fans of those settings. Given that psionics is openly being worked on at Wizards of the Coast, Dark Sun would seem to be a strong candidate for the next PDF update, and since it is not as "generic fantasy" as Greyhawk and Nentir, it doesn't compete as much with the Forgotten Realms.

However, I’d really love to see an update for the Nentir Vale. During D&D’s 4th Edition, a Nentir Vale campaign setting almost (but-not-quite) saw print. It hit the release schedule, but was later removed. A fair amount of the content for the proposed book made it into Monster Vault: Threats to the Nentir Vale, which was probably one of the best products of the entire 4th Edition line. However, a stand alone setting book was never released.

Recently, Mike Mearls has been updating his “home game” version of the Nentir Vale document and showing the occasional sneak-peek on Twitter. These peeks look a lot like what one might find in an official update. A Nentir Vale update on the DM’s Guild would be an amazing win for fans of 4th Edition and the Vale.

Odelyn's Forge - a Hamlet in Nentir Vale

The other day, I detailed a method for adding depth to villages and towns in a campaign. After running down the road with an the idea I used as the example, I ended up with more detail than what was strictly necessary for the article. After a bit more nerd-building world building, I ended up with the newest hamlet in Nentir Vale.

Odelyn's Forge

Location: Northwest of Harkenwold near the Dawnforge Mountains in the Nentir Vale
Population: 600. Human 60%, Dwarf 25%, Halfling 10%, Elf 5%
Government: Feudal. A 10 member Village Council includes representatives elected by each of the village's major trade guilds including two seats for Dwarves from the Dawnforge Mining Cooperative. Ties in the Council are broken by the Baroness' chancellor. The Council manages the day to day activities of the village but is answerable to the Baroness who may overturn any ruling, policy, or procedure put into place by the Council.
Trade goods: Pig iron (raw), iron finished goods (cook pots, plow blades, horse shoes, etc), charcoal, lumber, wool, goat cheese
Resources: Iron mine, forest, grazing lands
Primary Trades: Miners, Founders, Smiths, Iron Merchants, Colliers, Teamsters, Lumbermen, Shepherds
Religion: Erathis is the patron deity in Odelyn's Forge. A modest church of Erathis sit at the center of town. The western transept is dedicated to the worship of Moradin and worship days for both gods alternate on the calendar. Other gods may be venerated in town, but do not have any official chapel or shrine.
Place of interest: Chapel of Erathis, Roche Noire Tavern, Iron Foundry, Mine, Logging Camp

Notable NPCs

Florio Herrera - (Hu/M/Clr3) Pastor who manages the church of Erathis.  Florio is somewhat young for his station and has ambitions to establish a grand cathedral to Erathis.
Benno Sternhand - (Dw/M/Clr5) Curate of Moradin who shares responsibilities for the church with Florio. Benno is on friendly terms with Florio but desires his own separate chapel to Moradin.
Madame Simone Neuville - (Hu/F/Arist 5) Village chancellor for Baroness Dunhill. Manages the taxation and finances of Odelyn's Forge. Non-voting member (except with a tie) on the Village Council and representative of the Baroness in all Council matters.
Guy Dufour - (Hu/M/Ftr1) Hostler and chef at Roche Noire Tavern and Hostel.
Collette Dufour - (Hu/F/Rog1) Alewife and co-owner of Roche Noire.