#ttrpg

I really do appreciate that the authors were trying to explore settings with a different perspective than the pseudo-European/North American cultural base used for most #DnD settings.

But since this 224 page book is split up between 13 adventures and 15 cultures, the glimpses we get of each culture is so frustratingly brief. As someone who wants their settings to come with lots of details, this would make it difficult for me to bring the cultures in question truly come alive. In lieu of further detail, it might have helped if they had spelled out which culture each setting is based on - in some cases it was fairly easy for me to guess, but in others I was unsure.

I also have to admit, I prefer running campaigns where the PCs largely stay in one particular region rather than traveling around - and when they do travel around, there should be a good reason for why they are doing all this traveling. The 13 adventures in this book do not really have any real connection to each other than their presupposed home base (the Radiant Citadel) - the PCs just show up in some place for whatever reason the GM come up with, and solve some local problem.

Still, the brief glimpses I get of all these worlds are intriguing. And I am curious if any of the original authors have developed their miniature settings further on the Dungeon Master's Guild - I would certainly take a closer look! #ttrpg

This book by @hellcowkeith@dice.camp is not a book that focuses on a specific topic and covers that topic in detail, like the assorted 3.5 books for Eberron did. It is best to see it as a collection of essays on a variety of niche topics - some of which are very niche, such two minor gnome subcultures.

Some of the chapters are broader in scope, and personally I found the chapter on the Overlords, The Dark Six, and the lore and folk-lore about undead the most useful. As an amateur folklorist, I especially appreciated the last one - to run good adventures about monsters, you should not only contemplate their stats, but also what the people within the world know about them, and what kinds of stories they tell.

Fans of Keith Baker's previous work will find plenty to like here, but I see this work to be more for completists rather than a "must have" for Eberron fans.

Still, I suspect that Keith Baker's next work - "Frontiers of Eberron: Quickstone" will be more to my liking, since it is a more focused work on a specific topic and region. And as it happened, it is out right now - so excuse me while I download it. 😉

#ttrpg #dnd #Eberron

It was probably a bit ambitious to read "Aztec Philosophy" as my very first book on philosophy, and thus it took me a long time to finish it. But it was very much worth it, since it allowed me to examine my own Eurocentric perceptions and assumptions on philosophy, metaphysics, cosmology, and so forth. And thus I recommend this book to anyone else who wants to gain a wider perspective on these matters.

Consciously or not (and mostly the latter), most people with an Eurocentric background (including those descended from European settlers) have internalized narratives about the world that are heavily based on both Greek philosophy and Christian theology - and this remains true even for those who have decided to reject Christianity. Aztecs - and other indigenous American people - have long lived in isolation from Europe, and have thus built up their own philosophies and metaphysics which has shaped their understanding of the world in an entirely different way.

Central to Aztec metaphysics is the concept of "teotl" - a divine force (and not energy) that constantly recreates itself in new forms. Everything that was, is, and will be - from rocks and animals, humans, and to the very gods themselves - are merely temporary manifestations of teotl which will eventually decay and dissolve, and then their teotl will manifest in new forms. The goal for humans is then to maintain a good, stable, moderate life on this Earth for long as it will last - for nothing will last forever.

This is the merest gist of the complexities involved, but it is already a huge contrast to the Christian notions of an "eternal, unchanging divine" and the "temporary base matter" of earthly existence - to the Aztecs, there is no fundamental difference between the teotl within a mortal and the teotl within the gods. And while Christian cosmology has a clear beginning and end to Creation, Aztec philosophy does not - existence will always go on, although its form is constantly changing.

Even if you are not a student of philosophy, I recommend this book to #ttrpg players and GMs. For instance, I found that the concept of teotl as described in this work could work surprisingly well for the philosophical underpinnings of "The Force" in #StarWars - it would add some real nuance to the conflicts between the "Dark Side" and the "Light Side". And the concepts within this book could add a lot of nuance and ideas to other settings with complex metaphysics!

You can find a shorter overview article about the concepts explained in this book here:

iep.utm.edu/aztec-philosophy/