Yeah, yeah, I know the memes, but seriously: has anybody out there ever seen a bit of lore in either D&D 4e or Pathfinder and thought "I'll have that!" before yoinking it to their own setting?
Personally, I use the Nentir Vale and the World Axis as my defaults all the time, because I find them far more enjoyable than Faerun and the Great Wheel.
Likewise, I do steal some elements from Pathfinder that I've an interest in. For example, the various fiends on PF actually work really well in the World Axis, and some of the deities are great for padding out or modifying the Dawn War Pantheon.
Heck, even figuring out how to amalgamate the two can generate interesting ideas, in my experience.
Tyler Miller
Why put shit on your chocolate icecream?
David Sanders
Expanding on my opening post.,..
I use the World Axis instead of the Great Wheel - I find the latter is too focused on filling a grid and being there to support the bloated mess that is 9-grid alignment.
4e angels, devils and demons beat out their i5e versions, though succubi are still an "independent" fiendish faction.
Oni and Kami are from the Feywild.
Divs are genies who tried to manipulate either the Abyss or the Shadowfell and found it backfired, corrupting them into monsters no longer accepted by their kin.
Nentir Vale is the "default world" and not Faerun.
Dawn War was the first and biggest conflict in the multiverse. As in 4e, the Blood War still exists, but goes through eons-long hot & cold cycles and is currently rebuilding from the last "hot" cycle, which destroyed a galaxy's worth of shit.
The Devildrake War that destroyed Arkhosia and Bael Turath is a thing.
Iron & Adamantine Dragons replace Bronze & Brass as the "core five" of Metallic Dragons.
Sebastian Miller
I'm going to bump real quick to avoid this thread dying and bring up this: OP, have you read 'Worlds and Monsters', a book WOTC released which explained their worldbuilding for 4E?
Nicholas Wilson
Kami would probably work as a particular type of primal spirit.
Demodands never got added to 4e, but I can see them as some kind of demonic shadowfell race.
Asuras would work great in a 4e-based system as a sort of epic level anti-Deva foe, with the ability to reincarnate themselves and others.
Adam Brown
Btw I'm serious: initially I hated the way 4e ditched so much of the cosmology D&D had built over the years for a rebooted setting but after reading Worlds and Monsters I gained a new appreciation for what they were trying to do. Namely, build a high fantasy setting framework which made internal sense and was not beholden to random bits of lore from various settings which had accumulated and glued themselves to D&D for no other reason than it was there because it was there.
Austin King
Nentir Vale is alright, I guess, for when you need a blank slate "setting" with minimal complications. I put scare quotes around the word setting because NV is so tiny it wouldn't qualify as a small country region, let alone a campaign world.
James Evans
I really appreciated the lore of 4e. It focused a lot more on actually interesting places you could go and adventure, instead of pointless pattern completion.
Charles Turner
Symmetry in a cosmology is not pointless. Just ask the wheel of dharma.
John Price
Why are you bothered with things being just there? Why must every single place be an adventure locale for your murderhobos to wreck up?
