Recent developments regarding sorcery and Necromancers have raised some concerns on the forums as to where things fit in, especially when they seem to contradict what we knew in the past. While I am not prepared to go point-for-point on the IC implications of sorcery in society, I have been asked to talk about the idea of retcons and story evolution in the game in general.

First, I will fully admit there are times we retcon things for various reasons we consider good enough to warrant the action. DragonRealms is over 20 years old and has changed leadership and GM teams and with that, sensibilities over time. I personally have put the kibosh on things in-game or things that have nearly made it in-game due to these evolving sensibilities. While we can debate the artistic quality of the work that was done, it did not fit the videogame as we now produce it or the times we now exist in as players and developers.

So, yes, there are points in the game's history where we have simply said "this cannot be anymore" and it disappeared in a cloud of fuzzy logic. We don't enjoy doing that and take pains to integrate what came before as thoroughly as possible. But, yes, sometimes the shoe fits.

More prevalent, however, is the notion of story evolution. DragonRealms is, again, over 20 years old. There is a slow cycle of creators and players filtering in and out who all want to leave some kind of mark in the game, and this is both a completely understandable and justified feeling to have. Further, I sincerely believe everyone would be bored if we simply kept pounding the same few keys over and over again across DR's history.

So, yes, the story changes. Battles come and go, plots spin up and wind down. Especially in terms of esoteric lore and the sociopolitical setting, things may flat out change or more context revealed that change the way we view the existing world.

There are a few major issues at heart here, one of which being that the game has an uneven degree of stasis versus evolution. Parts of the game are frozen in time, and other parts are not. This is often a gameplay consideration, such as why hunting areas have not been depopulated to non-existence or why Kssarh is still going after over a hundred years. Like fantasy in general, this requires a degree of suspension of disbelief.

Another, perhaps even more critical element, is the notion of the unreliable narrator. Almost all IC content that is not first hand experience is intentionally biased toward either a specific NPC's point of view or, when written more broadly, toward a generalized notion of "what people know." Tied to this is the further notion that some beliefs, even central beliefs in the mythology of the setting, are not true, and when there is reason to brush up against them IC confusion can result.

For the sake of clarification, I'll tell you one example that comes up repeatedly. We've deflected requests for favors from the Gorbesh pantheon for years, even though other beliefs beyond the Immortals can grant them. This is because while they have a strong mythological history behind them, in the real state of Elanthia they are absent and thus cannot do things for your characters that active deities can.

This leads yet further to an important issue: PCs can be wrong, and this is not bad roleplaying or bad storytelling. It is okay to be, continuing the example, a priest interested in the Gorbesh pantheon despite their silence. It's okay to not accept the Redeemed even if the gods do. It is more than okay to give sorcery the stink eye even as the world grows more accustomed to it. These are all valid RP choices. Finding out the world is different than your PC originally thought is also a valid roleplay situation and not a crisis. The world grows, and so can characters (or not, depending on how you prefer their story to go).

As our characters and leaders grow, study, and learn, new information may be discovered. This does not necessarily negate old lore, but tells a story of the evolution of a society. If I have one plea through this post it is to not view the story through only the first sources that you have found, but through the entire "tradition" of storytelling that is taking place in the game.

-Armifer
"Perinthia's astronomers are faced with a difficult choice. Either they must admit that all their calculations were wrong ... or else they must reveal that the order of the gods is reflected exactly in the city of monsters." - Italo Calvino