For the setting to attract new people, I think it has to move on. That is, I think we need to do the occasional drastic change or plot event.
Im not talking about a complete change of direction, though. There should always be awnshegh in the setting, but any individual awnshegh might die or be significantly changed as the result of a set of adventures (a campaign) that someone out in the BR community might write and post for everyones use. After all, if our big problem is that someone writes a 60-70 page (or more) document like “Sword and Crown” or “King of the Giantdowns” and the culmination of that text is that the players face off with the Gorgon, the Magian, or Rhuobhe Manslayer, possibly resulting in the demise of that NPC, then I think thats the kind of "problem" we _want_ to have, isnt it? After all, one is free to ignore it in ones own campaign, so the most harm it could do is that individual DMs might not like it. I suspect everyone in the BR community has, at some point, seriously considered running a campaign in which the players take on the Gorgon and maybe even win. After all, the settings background pretty much sets up that as a goal.
There is a point at which changing things would be too much, or might be too radical. Personally, Ive always objected to the inclusion of weird new races in the documents that people have prepared about Aduria, for example. I think a whole new race appearing for no good reason on the continent that was once attached to Cerilia makes very little sense, especially since at least of of the five human races (all immigrants to the continent) travelled right up that continent to get to Cerilia....I dont think anyone should introduce concepts or game mechanics that diverge wildly from the original materials either. In the past, I`ve argued consistently against things like ninjas, psionics and even gnomes (which are mentioned in the original materials) in the setting.
That said, the setting does need to move on in significant, “epic” ways. For example, Ive had in the back of my mind a campaign called "Invasion!" which would feature an assault on Cerilia by a massive army from some unspecified continent of Aebrynis--it doesnt really matter much where they came from. The invading hordes are led by an awnshegh called Khan Trannus, whose totemic form is that of a Tyrannosaurs Rex. He leads an army equal to about half the armies of all Cerilia combined. He has access to magic items comparable to relics. Maybe he even has access to gunpowder. In such a campaign, nearly every domain and regent of Cerilia would become involved in the conflict in one way or another.
That would certainly be a big influence on any given campaign, and anything might happen. Players might wind up cooperating with the Gorgon. Certainly any of the human regents might be killed. The gods might even get involved in such huge events.
But theres no reason why people should feel like theyd have to artake in such a thing. It`d be a cool thing to have available, though.
Gary
