No, not Forgotten Realms, that's in the Role Playing section.

This is for the weekly Uncharted Realms feature on the Wizards site and discussion of the stories therein.

This week is the second of a two part story of which... I actually haven't read the first part. Whoops. I need to go back and do that. I was too busy reading about Object Oriented Ontology [chokes and dies on own vomit]. Anyway, yeah, Uncharted Realms discussion: GO.

Cross-posting.

Overall I rather liked this story. I found it nice that even though Anax beat his brother, he still ended up losing the games and he was cool with that. Even going into the tournament, he was clear that winning wasn't his goal, just putting on a good show was.

@Keeper: Make sure you read part one. It has naked guys in it.

I liked this part as well as the first part. Anax seems to understand how to make a point publicly, which seems like a good skill for a king.

This week's story was really good.
It's the first one (out of admittedly very few) that really felt special.

Oh my, it really is neat... just imagining the Dryad's journey.

I love how it covered all of the different kinds of nymphs quite well.

A rather neat story, which kind of reminds me of some fairy tale literature, which is more than apropriate.

Today's story didn't do anything for me. Like, all I got out of it was: "Dryad meets nymphs of other colors. Humans suck."

Yeah, I feel about the same. Some of the interactions were also pretty abrupt or didn't quite flow right as well.

Same for me. I had trouble getting through the whole thing. It felt, I dunno, forced I guess? I much preferred the two-parter.

I didn't want to post here because I don't actually keep up with Uncharted Realms, but I just started wondering; where's Thoctar? Is he still trying to the thing at the old place? He may need to re-grow some hair.

And yes, I'm still referencing Kiss of the Shorecerers.

Yeah, the pacing is weird, like it's just rushing this dryad into meeting these different nymphs to finish the story. There really isn't an arc or anything. I kind of wish it just depicted the five nymphs without using the dryad as a vehicle; like if the story was just a short braiding of five vignettes.

Also, the oreads are the product of Prophuros but seem much more aligned with Iroas. What does Prophuros care about honorable combat?

Nymphs act independently, though, and the oreads are indeed described as rather more war like than their master.

I did notice that they slipped in a Bestow reference, since the Nymph only came into being (fell off) when the Hydra she was enchanting died.

I don't usually mind the "nature good, humans bad" type story. However, this one was a bit too anvilicious for my taste, especially considering the fact that Theros also has minotaurs, leonin, tritons, and other folks that all do the same sorts of bad things as humans. But no, only the humans suck, everyone else is fine.

Where does it say they are more warlike than their master?

I don't think the message is supposed to be, "This nymph, limited in her perspective because she is a being created from a god's grief, is right. Her perspective is the one we should agree with," though.

While I see your point, I disagree. After all, we get the perspectives of the other nymphs too, and they all agree.

Yes, all the nymphs created by the vastly powerful and inhuman gods agree that humans suck.

Which they are free to do, except the style of the writing doesn't really communicate how limited their perspective is, and as I said before, humans are not the only mean sapients on Theros.

I rather liked today's Realms. While I don't like that Sirens are apparently just sexy versions of Harpies on Theros, this tale felt really Greek to me.

I was very pleased with this week's story. We get the more jealous/punishing side of the gods, and the end when she embraces being a siren sent chills down my spine. Change the setting and it would slide right into Innistrad. I wonder which god she upset so much though by attracting the attention of the guy?