The Kitchen Sinkhole

I don’t know anything about the Forgotten Realms, but what’s nice is that I don’t even have to. The setting is one big set of plot conveniences to put everyone’s favorite fantasy toys in one box. The D&D movie that came out last year was a fantastic incarnation of the Realms precisely because there was no cohesion except what was necessary to progress the story and (more importantly) make jokes about the world’s own contrivances. This recalls, to a T, Ursula K. Le Guin’s take on commodified fantasy that makes the rounds every now and then (I don't know myself where it's from lol):

Commodified fantasy takes no risks: it invents nothing, but imitates and trivializes. It proceeds by depriving the old stories of their intellectual and ethical complexity, turning their truth-telling to sentimental platitude. heroes brandish their swords, lasers, wands, as mechanically as combine harvesters, reaping profits. Profoundly disturbing moral choices are sanitized, made cute, made safe. The passionately conceived ideas of the great story-tellers are copied, stereotyped, reduced to toys, molded in bright-colored plastic, advertised, sold, broken, junked, replaceable, interchangeable.

Check, check, and check. Here’s a new thought: in contexts where kitchen sink fantasy is the norm, thoroughly devoid of specificity and meaning, isn’t attempting to subvert this trend (potentially) as interesting as consciously trying to avoid it? Like, take even the ultra-cosmopolitan, Obamacrat version of the Forgotten Realms and take it to its natural conclusions. In that spectacular reflection of our world, isn't there a topsy turvy truth waiting to be uncovered? Or would that just be trying to have your cake and eat it too? The stakes aren't that high, so might as well give it a try!

This has already been the methodology with which I've approached writing origins and backgrounds for FMC NEXT, as well as some world-building to justify a short calendar year, but it's something I want to think about more consciously as a thematic goal. This is especially to help me brainstorm some scenarios to play with! Something else to chew on, by way of a personal anecdote on Discord:

when i was in high school, i was coding a city-building game where the player is some kind of near eastern deity, and the way i imagined it was at the end the city would be constantly plagued and attacked by monotheists—only now occurring to me that would be a fascinating conflict for d&d stuff

Much to consider!

P.S. I don't like FMC NEXT as a name either. Maybe thinking too hard. It's not like this is for anyone other than myself, or that it's going to be in bookstores. D&DEEEEE it is.