ToV: The Nerrath Campaign

I miss Nerrath.

My brother and I were recovering from a hard time in our lives, and we used D&D 4E to work through it. We escaped to Nerrath to get away from a world that abandoned us and forced us to fight for ourselves. Restarting all our roleplaying here felt like a fresh start, and it served as a microcosm of our fight to regain a sense of normalcy.

For about four years it lasted, until another tragedy struck with my brother's health, and D&D 4E moved to the Essentials line, a 4.5E that started to abandon the game, similar to D&D 2024. We discovered how badly 4E sucked at the higher levels. We got over his health issues together, but D&D 4E died on the vine, and 5E never replaced it.

My brother played a ranger, and the 5E ranger always sucks. If there is one class Wizards will never understand, it is the ranger, and this is their curse. The ToV ranger is so much better, and at least they keep their role-playing wilderness powers. They are not just a "map combat class" like they are in 2024 D&D.

With my brother gone, there are times when I want to come back here and enjoy the world again.

Tales of the Valiant would do this world justice and play like I remember it. It would be slightly "Kobold Press" flavored, but that is not a bad thing, given how much D&D 2024 has changed the game into something unrecognizable and heavily censored. ToV has a few issues, too, like removing alignment, which drains the game of direction and motivation. I can add an alignment system if I want, so it is not a huge problem.

Kobol Press' monsters and additions feel more fantasy-oriented than D&D, which skews more towards pseudo-modernism. I like the clockwork and kobold elements; they feel fun and a bit silly, and there should be more of that in games. The void influence is also extraordinary and extra-worldly, without feeling too planar.

The Kobold structure of the place is better than D&D's tired "Great Wheel" model, and much more open. The Labyrinth exists as the "world between worlds" and allows travel between worlds without going too gate-happy. This is a much more sane model of universe structure, like how the Eleven Hells are next to the Elemental Plane of Fire, and the Celestial Realm is adjacent to the Plane of Air. It all makes sense.

The Labyrinth model also better simulates the world model of 4E, where interconnected worlds are all in the same area of the universe. The later D&D 4E releases sabotaged us with this "all-in-one" planar model, where stating worlds became MMO starting zones and were unimportant to the grand scheme of things. D&D 4E assumed you would end up on the planes, and the homeworlds were unimportant.

We took the opposite view, in that you could find creatures from level 1-30 in the world, and there were places you did not go. ToV supports that worldview nicely.

In the Labyrinth, you could have a "level 20 world" where nothing below a CR 20 exists, and we had that world in our D&D 4E game. Even houseflies and common rats were CR 20; traps were all certain death CR 20 killers, and this world was insane, but a lot of fun to treasure-hunt for the good stuff. If you can get in and out without dying, you often can find something extraordinary.

We expanded the world with many new locations, which turned out to be fun additions full of flavor. Going "beyond the map " was an adventure to find "what was out there," and that was always fun. The home base was always Fallcrest, but we had several base towns and other places outside of here that served as adventure hubs.

I could see the Fallcrest area being a spot on the Labyrinth. All the lineage options are there, if you include the Dragonborn from the Labyrinth Worldbook, and we will need to wait for the Player's Guide 2 for the Drow (but easily addable in Shard as a custom lineage), and the gang is all here.

We did have a character from Midgard in our D&D 4E game! So, in our continuity, the worlds were linked, and a possible ToV version of Nerrath is likely, given that Nerrath is likely destroyed and forgotten, with the reality shards lying out there for the ToV gods to reconstruct in a ToV form.

The ToV would be slightly different, with the Kobolds and Clockworks running around, but they are cool and thematically fit the "Lost 4E" vibe. Similarly, Aasimar and Tieflings are replaced by the Sydereans (of both celestial and fiendish flavors). I don't mind the changes, and it reflects the world being rebuilt in the Koboldverse, rather than being left to die in the Wizards-verse.

I still stay on the Kickstarters and new books for ToV for this reason.

A chance to go back and be there again.

Bundle of Holding: Vales of the Valiant

https://bundleofholding.com/presents/TalesOfTheValiant

What a deal today over on Bundle of Holding!

The three core books, plus five adventures, are going for just $25!

For half the price of ONE D&D 2024 core book hardcover, or a little less than just ONE of the D&D 2024 digital books, you get the entire game plus five adventures! Oh, and the monster and GM books are 100% D&D 2024 compatible, so if you play that game, you have more for it. The GM book is impressive, far superior to the D&D 2024 DMG, and it has far more valuable tools for game masters. An entire 10% of the book is devoted to monster creation, which is absent from the 2024 DMG.

And you get them in PDF.

Yours to own.

No subscription required.

An incredible deal today, and if you are on the fence, now is the time to jump in and check the system out!

Shard Tabletop & ToV Thoughts

I play Tales of the Valiant over on Shard Tabletop, and they have a good selection of ToV books and character options, along with the ability to create your own custom content.

If I want a Drow, I can pull one in from a source, create a custom lineage, and have it. Until Player's Guide 2 drops, and then, Shard support, I will need to use my custom one for a while. If I get the PG2 PDF, I can update my creation to match, and then flip from custom to official when I get the Shard version.

Custom content support is critical, especially for a game like ToV, which does not port in 5E races but expects them to be in the lineage format to work with the character designer. I wish the Book of Blades were on Shard. I like keeping up to date. There is a wait for VTT support, and that is not fun.

So, why am I playing ToV again? I own the books (PDF for now), I paid for them, and this version of 5E is not too bad. While the Second Edition (using For Gold & Glory) is my all-time favorite, the character builds in ToV work well and have an ARPG vibe. If you are going to play a pen-and-paper game that plays like a video game, ToV is a good choice. The core attraction of the 5E system is the gamification of the rules, action combat, and reduced lethality.

If Level Up: Advanced 5E was on Shard, I would be playing that, too. Esper Genesis is on there, and I would like to see other 5E games on there, too, even Shadowdark.

In contrast, old-school games are less gamified and more logic puzzles, as you figure out how to crack a room or encounter with as few resources as possible. Combat is often expensive and very lethal in older editions of the game, and death is not always recoverable. I wish the Kobold Press had hardcore play options laid out in the GM's Guide; then again, I am free to use anything that works with 5E.

I am not playing D&D 2024. I don't see the need for the new edition, and I have a game from a company I like better that lets me own my PDFs. I don't feel great about Wizards after the OGL, and that comes down to a choice about who I want to give my money to.

The fight between playing 5E and a game like World of Warcraft is always a hard choice for me, since I play solo, and World of Warcraft does a lot of the work for me, and gets me in touch with other live people playing the same game. The WoW storytelling sends me right back to 5E, and all MMOs become a grind after a while.

Still, Shard plus ToV is a fun experience, and I enjoy making maps and playing through smaller scenarios, like a Shadowdark, one-page-dungeon vibe. Something simple I created with my subscription to the Dungeon Scrawl online map tool. 5E plays solo well, and I can run 3-4 characters in a party without feeling overwhelmed.

I would like to have room for my books, but I don't, so I stick to my PDFs and online tools, and that is enough fun for me.

Play, Mod, and Use the Rules You Like

Whatever you play: D&D 2014, D&D 2024, Level Up Advanced 5E, or Tales of the Valiant, just enjoy the game. It is long overdue to call for peace and understanding between the 5E communities and just enjoy the game. Any version of 5E is the same game, just slightly different flavors. At this point, if you play 5E, it is just the choice of which Raisin Bran cereal you like. They are all raisin bran, so who really cares?

I play Tales of the Valiant for a few reasons. One, I am starting to see the "platform lock-in" of Wizards and D&D's current direction as being too close to Microsoft and its intrusiveness, and the game's surrender to AI tools and systems. I don't want that future, so I vote with my wallet and the blog I write.

I like to own my PDFs.

I choose to support a company with an open license and publishing model.

Midgard, Deep Magic, the Kobold Press monster books, the adventures, and all the great stuff Kobold Press publishes are strong supports, and I enjoy them all. So it is not just political, I found a vendor that puts out great work, and I support them. They make great stuff, and just focusing on ToV and the KP books is a fantastic experience.

The Black Flag open license supports my right to create for their system and publish wherever I want. I am not limited to a dying D&D Beyond with its overload of AI-slop content. If that marketplace dies, so does most third-party D&D 2024 support (outside of the Creative Commons).

Kobold Press respects old-school players and doesn't censor the monster list out of overblown political correctness. Orcs are in tales of the Valiant, Level Up A5E, Shadowdark, and every previous edition of D&D, and we are all fine. Nobody's been hurt. People know the difference. Please stop trying to protect us. We are adults and can distinguish between fantasy and reality.

I put in a few positive reasons because it is crucial to explain why you like a version of the game, not just be negative about one side. If Tales of the Valiant did not exist, I would be playing Level Up. If that didn't exist, I would still be with 2014 D&D. I have written off 2024 D&D, but if you like it, great. It is not all that much different than what I am playing. A person with a New York accent can still speak to someone with a Texas accent, and that is the difference between us.

We should not be down on our choice of game, the flavor we like to play, or even 5E itself. If you trash 5E as a "garbage system" and are only talking about D&D, then you are doing a disservice to everyone who plays a 5E clone or variant.

That said, I do have some huge problems with 5E and its lethality and too-easy healing. I have made this well known, and it riles some. Someone could get repeatedly stabbed by a sword and sleep it all off, and be fine the next day. That doesn't happen in real life. But this isn't real life! I know. This is the "but this is fantasy" argument that assumes fantasy is a single thing rather than many things in many flavors.

This is a preference for higher stakes and healing that is not so easy. I should not have to abandon 5E if this is how I feel. I can houserule the game or use a 3rd-party hardcore mode book. I can mod and tune my game. This is just like Skyrim, and I can make changes and get this game playing exactly how I like it.

What is the difference between an OSR game and a modded 5E with OSR features? Let's put them on equal lethality and limit healing. 5E would have slightly more in-depth characters, while the OSR would have a better hit point scale. Once I tweak 5E to play in hardcore mode, there isn't much difference between what I can build and what I can play in any OSR game.

Modded 5E: Character builds, advantage and disadvantage, and luck.

OSR: Flat hit point scale, easier characters, and classic gameplay.

Am I saying "you don't need OSR games?" Not really. If you like how they play and the simplicity of a straightforward OSR game, dive right in. Nothing beats the beer-and-pretzels, 3d6 down-the-line, simple BX and 1E gameplay. This is classic fantasy gaming at its best.

If you like the "5E system" and the "advanced character builds," then try modding the game with one of the hardcore play options and see if you like it. 5E does the modern-style MMO character builds very well, and if that is how you want your deeper characters, be happy, play the game you like, and mod the game for an OSR challenge level.

If you don't like Wizards, don't play D&D. Play Level Up Advanced 5E or Tales of the Valiant. If you haven't, give them a try. You will have a great 5E experience with zero drama and great support. Level Up has great character builds and pillars of play, but it heavily modifies the base game.

Tales of the Valiant has near-perfect 2014 D&D compatibility, so if you have lots of legacy books, this may work better for you.

But don't walk away from 5E because you are angry at Wizards. You have options. You can stay positive and still play the games you own. If others still like and play D&D, they are playing the same game as you. You just choose a different set of books to play with.

Play the games you love. Modify them and make them your own. Embrace positivity and community. Also, don't let negativity make you feel "that you wasted good money on a trash game." Internet comments can put you in that mindset. Change to A5E or ToV, and keep the game going. Remain positive. Have adventures. Play your game for fun.

But overall, it is time to reduce the negativity in the hobby, among those outside it in the OSR, and among those playing whatever version of 5E they like, and just play together.

Is It Helpful to Trash 5E?

"5E is a trash system!"

I see that comment so often in YouTube comments and elsewhere. I get it, you trash the system on the way out the door for other games. Once you buy into another system, you torch the one you walked away from, or, in many people's feelings, Wizards and D&D walked away from them. There is no shortage of changes, new edition grief, sanitizing monsters, and other changes in D&D when none of that needed to be made.

"So, I am out of here. Never coming back. I am done. A trash system anyway."

I feel the pain and hurt; I have been here.

5E works fine for games like Shadowdark or Tales of Aragosa. They are 5E-based systems without all the complexity, work very "close to the metal," and mimic a BX-type experience. People love these, so it is not really 5E that is the problem here.

I get the feeling the problems with 5E are based on a few factors:

1. The game's complexity.
2. A lack of lethality.
3. Slow play, especially at higher levels.
4. Wizards of the Coast and the changes made to D&D 2024.
5. The OGL Disaster.
6. Platform dependency and a lack of downloadable PDFs.
7. The slow trickle of rules patches and expansion content in every book.
8. D&D 2024 was designed for a failed VTT.

Those are my big six. Granted, some people like the complexity and the deeper character builds, so this is more a matter of personal preference. I made a cleric in Tales of the Valiant who can use the same weapons as her goddess: a longbow, spear, and mace. That is cool, but I can't do that in BX or 1E since those systems are too strict, and Shadowdark won't let me either. I would need to houserule it in those systems, and in ToV, I just did it without needing to houserule a thing or get GM permission.

A lack of lethality is a problem in D&D and ToV. This is one I will give the haters, and even I need to mod the game to up the lethality and danger. Healing is far too generous. It is not a hard change to make, but this is one I need to make to keep the game feeling dangerous and exciting.

Slow play? I gotta give the haters this one, too. Though ToV reduces monster hit points and makes them hit harder, so they at least tried to address this problem here. This is more a lack of playtesting on Wizards' part, and Kobold Press made adjustments to the math to address this issue. Another part of this lies in the complexity of the characters and in people not knowing the rules or the class they play.

If you take more than a minute or two deciding what your character is doing during a turn, I will skip your character and declare they are standing there doing nothing. Get off your phone, pay attention, and be thinking of your next move while the other players are taking theirs. Slow play is a behavioral issue that can be addressed by forcing players to skip their turns if they don't know what to do.

Sorry. Pay attention. Show respect to others. If this makes you TPK, you should have never been on your phone. Your character was on their phone and wasn't paying attention, so you all died. My games are not "second screen entertainment."

Look up that term. TV shows and movies are now being filmed assuming people will be on their phones during them and not pay attention.

Not in my game. It was hard enough getting six of you here at the same time; one player isn't going to disrespect everyone and be on their phone, and then have to be filled in when their turn comes up. If you didn't pay attention, no one is going to fill you in.

Part of what makes other games so attractive is that they punish this behavior. Shadowdark's torch timer is the best example. D&D, by not calling it out or forcing players to be on their phones or computers for character sheets, encourages it.

Numbers four through six are all Wizards of the Coast. They did not need to remove the humanoid monsters because orcs and goblins would have their feelings hurt; that is just stupid. They reduced options just to appease someone's feelings, which didn't need to happen, and it shows disrespect for the game's history and canon. Tales of the Valiant keeps the humanoid monsters, so that is the game I play.

And Tales of the Valiant allows me to own the PDFs. This is a huge reason I play ToV instead of D&D 2024; I can put the PDFs on my tablet and head out. I don't need to be subscribed to anything.

Number seven is a huge problem: how the books come out, patch problems, and then the books after that patch those problems, plus other issues. If you do not keep up with the books, your game is broken, and you will never have access to the latest character options and fixes.

Tales of the Valiant made many fixes and is a newer game, so at this point, it can be played with a few core books, and everyone is okay. One of the worst parts of playing D&D 2014 was needing Tasha's to be around at all times as a rules and class patch, and that book introduced things I did not want in my game. Even if you are sticking with 2014 today, you still need to keep that book around.

ToV is one set of rules, and the classes work out of the book.

Number eight is a good one. The D&D 2024 ranger has all the soft exploration and roleplay powers removed, since they didn't work well on the failed VTT project, Sigil. ToV's ranger sticks to 2014's design and keeps the soft, roleplay powers around. I like my rangers to do ranger things in exploration, and not just be off-tank DPS. This is another reason I play ToV over D&D. I bet you an expansion book will come out patching those ranger powers back into D&D 2024, and we will be forced to carry it around. Well, not me since I skipped D&D 2024 and chose ToV.

But I get people's anger on the way out the door. It is understandable to be angry over buying something that doesn't work or to walk away and find a better option elsewhere. Tell that to all of us who trusted D&D 4E's design team. But to players who choose other options still inside 5E, like ToV, Level Up A5E, Shadowdark, or other 5E-based systems, trashing all of 5E is not helpful or positive.

I have my problems with D&D, and a few are still in 5E.

If you are having fun with D&D 2024, great! I am happy.

We should be playing our games and loving our hobbies.

But I like to stay positive and be a helpful voice, working through these issues in my blogs for people to read and make their own choices, and to give them thoughtful discussion on how they can work through problems they may see as issues, too.

Tales of the Valiant: Staying Power

This blog is in my top performers group. I should not be surprised since this is my only 5E blog, and 5E still has market share and a majority of the players. But for a game-specific blog for Tales of the Valiant to be such a strong performer, compared to my other heavy hitters, is a little surprising.

Tales of the Valiant staying strong helps the entire hobby. Viable 5E alternatives exist with Tales of the Valiant, Level Up Advanced 5E, and Shadowdark. Every game plays to a different crowd, and we have strong options for players of all types.

I have seen a resurgence of ToV interest this fall and winter as the new shine of D&D 2024 wears off, and people settle into the games they are comfortable with. If you play 5E, you have to check out D&D 2024 and at least get that out of your system, and then you can return to the games you feel are home for you. ToV is turning out to be many people's "first choice" for 5E, and I suspect that has a lot to do with the fact that it's one of the few 5E versions you can own a complete PDF collection of, with no subscription or website requirement.

This blog, against all odds, is still drawing views. That is surprising, as all I see on most "RPG sites" about ToV is negativity and lukewarm, middling reviews. These come from the first days of the game's release, when people wanted radical changes. But, if you wish to have radical changes, plenty of options already exist: Daggerheart, Draw Steel, Nimble 5e, Cosmere, Dragonbane, and many others in a crowded market.

But if you want a game with perfect backwards compatibility, please let me use my current library; there aren't many options. You are stuck with three: D&D 2024, Level Up A5E, and Tales of the Valiant. Level Up has a few compatibility issues due to numerous changes to the core system, especially in subclass compatibility, so it primarily focuses on "monsters and adventures" compatibility, like Nimble 5e. Tales is the only one of them that achieves near-perfect subclass compatibility, and it works well with most any book you can throw at it.

The game is turning out to be a sleeper hit, and the class designs in here are superior to a lot of the ones in D&D 2024, since they keep the soft "roleplay" powers that D&D 2014 had, where D&D 2024 focused exclusively on map-play for their failed Shard VTT, and they wrote out a lot of those powers from the classes. The ranger is the best example, with the ToV ranger still having abilities used for exploration play.

Yes, you could houserule those into D&D 2024, but I should not have to. What is in the book is in the book, and that is how it plays.

I get the feeling the initial "there is nothing new here" negativity of ToV has worn off, and those looking for a 2014 "Long Term Support" 5E game are coming home to ToV and making it their core system. I have hardcovers, I own my PDFs, and support is excellent, with no fears that the game will be replaced by 6E in a few short years. My 10 years of D&D 2014 books are 100% supported, and will be for the next 10-20 years. We even get regular crowdfunding projects for new books!

Life is good over here on the Blue Team.

We just play, look forward to the next cool thing, and never get caught up in the drama.

The Kobold Press PDF support is enormous, easily eclipsing that of any other 5E variant, and it's all 5E-compatible. There are something like over 2,000 monsters in all the books for this game. We have a complete world and supported campaign setting for Midgard, along with dozens of adventures. Kobold Press has built a "Greyhawk setting" in Midgard, making it one of the best-supported modern campaign settings in the hobby.

If I only have my Kobold Press hardcovers out, the ToV-focused game is still huge. This is easily a Paizo-level of support, and it is good to see. I wish other 5E variants, including the excellent Level Up A5E, had this level of support. Kobold Press is killing it, the art is fantastic, the books are numerous, and the game design is tight and solid.

Yes, Wizards has the Forgotten Realms, but in terms of releasing regular, small-book adventure releases, the Forgotten Realms feels forgotten. At least in Midgard, I can pick up softcover adventures released at a regular rate, and the back catalog is enormous. There are more than enough adventures to have in Midgard, and they are not all "rules add-on books" like they are in D&D. Please, when I buy an adventure, just let it be an adventure and stop adding things to the rules.

Remember these? The TSR-era adventures that never added new subclass options, feats, races, or things to the rules? They were just adventures, and you could buy them without carrying them around to have a complete game. Please go back to these and stop making compilation books for them and watering them down. There were small ones, too, 16-32 pages most of the time, and they were long enough for a few fun sessions of play. Goodman Games knows this, and their short-form adventures are great fun and don't overstay their welcome.

It is nice to have a game and campaign world you can play and forget that anything else outside it exists. The "save versus drama" of Kobold Press and the Blue Team is super high, and I rarely hear anything negative about them. The Red Team of Wizards consistently receives negative coverage on YouTube, which drags down the game.

I wish it were not so! I skip all the harmful drama clickbait on YouTube these days, since I do not have the stomach for it anymore. I am not in this hobby to trash games; I have what I like and what I don't, and I have my reasons. OGL, PDF support, and censorship. Those are why I don't support the Red Team, and I am upfront about them. I don't make new stuff up every week to draw viewers.

Everything else the Red Team does, especially regarding game preservation, is excellent. Well, they could fire fewer people around Christmas, too, but welcome to Wall Street and that corporate "succeed or die" shuffle. I wish I could support them, but right now, I have better games from companies I like to throw my support behind.

And apparently, my readers here are onboard, too.

The game has legs and fans, I will say that.

The Blue Team is here to stay.

Cleaning Up my 5E Library

So, while a lot of what I own for 5E is compatible with Tales of the Valiant, I won't be using it all. So far, I have two crates of 5E books going into storage, and they are primarily in three areas. This is not to say these books are terrible, far from it; all of these are excellent books. I don't have much use for them right now; they will clutter my shelves, and I have similar options inside ToV that I want to focus on.

Character options I no longer need. I have tons of these for 5E, and while I could use them, I really don't want them in a pure ToV-style game. The above book, the Ainorian Companion, is a very cool resource packed with all sorts of race and class options, and it's worth adding to any 5E game. Right now, I have so much in ToV that I don't need "even more," and that is one of my criteria for the paring down of books.

If it duplicates character options I already have in ToV, or presents minor, alternate options I do not want to focus on, I will instead put it in storage and focus on a core set of books. I still have the PDF and can pull from that. Still, this is a great book completly full of fun options.

Is it nice? Yes. Do I need it for my game? Not really.

The Monster Manual Expanded books are fantastic! I love these books, but I already have 2,000+ monsters in the Kobold-verse, so I will put these away and focus on the monsters in the already jam-packed monster books for ToV and Kobold Press. Again, I have the PDFs; I want to focus on what ToV and KP bring to the table before I start pulling in new stuff. This is another one of those "presents more options that I already have" areas, and I am OK with storing them, as well as the original 5E monster manuals.

Yes! All this stuff works with 5E and ToV equally well! But I have too much. I need to seriously pare down my library and just focus on the best of the best. I have a glut of books from the Pandemic Era, and they are choking the fun game hiding inside there.

I have a lot of cool campaign settings for 5E, such as the Roman-themed Arcanis Campaign Setting. I am focusing on Midgard, so I will not need these and can put them into storage. While these fit on the Labyrinth nicely, I have the PDFs if I want to go that route. The campaign settings I want to focus on are in my Kobold-verse collection.

I can focus on these settings later, but I have so much to pare down to my core books and experience. This is a great setting, just not for me at this time. I will return to this one someday, as it looks cool. This is one I could see existing on the Labyrinth easily, given some love and attention.

But, if I have the room after paring my books down, the settings will be the first books to come back, since the Labyrinth is perfect for them. With Wizards-verse of Greyhawk, the Forgotten Realms, Eberron, and Dark Sun? That is staying in the Wizards Multiverse and I am not revisiting them, nor will they be on my version of the Labyrinth. Why? Part of me says, "been there, done that." And another part of me knows these settings are heavy enough they would completely suck the focus of the game towards them and not these other imaginative and cool settings.

Old settings, make way for the new.

Would I want to revisit the 5E version of the Forgotten Realms, or spend that time in Arcanis? The answer is easy, lose the well-worn and tired Realms, and play with the new setting. We need a fresh injection of blood and energy into fantasy gaming, and the Wizards settings feel like bald tires now they have been so overused and made to be modern world fantasy stand-ins. They are not even how I remember them, and it feels like going back to a place you grew up in and discovered they put in a freeway, stadium, HOA community, state prison, industrial park, and Walmart.

The original charm is gone.

I have played in these 30+ years, I am ready for new experiences.

My Labyrinth is home to new worlds and adventures, not the old ones.

It sounds sad, but I am ready to move on, and the Wizards settings do not define fantasy to me anymore. There is no anger or hate in this choice, but a little sadness and bittersweet memories of places that once captured my imagination, but they have not felt fantastical at all in the last 10+ years. They were changed, abandoned, changed again, and they feel like the undead, brought back again for another go-round.

I have some nice add-on books for NPCs, but the NPC stats for ToV are in the Monster Vault 2 book. The ToV ones are more designed for ToV abilities, and while the above book is a great resource, I am not sure I will use it much in favor of the ones I already have. It is a nice-to-have; I am on the fence about it, but I already have NPC stats in ToV, so I am likely to store this.

There is a problem with higher-level D&D NPCs differing in powers and abilities from higher-level ToV characters. While it could be explained away as a "one-off NPC," I like to have the NPCs in the world reflect the core system they run on.

Spectacular Settlements? Here is a book I am keeping in my library. This is a system-neutral book with towns, tables, and descriptions that could easily fit into any world, including Midgard. This saves me work, does not repeat or overrule anything in ToV, and is not rules-incompatible with the game. There are no characters created with 5E, nor does it stat monsters; it is just an excellent book, complete with interesting locations, and this makes any world you add it to better. Highly recommended.

So we have a new criterion for including books: system-neutral tomes that make the world a better place and are time-saving for me. Setting books I want on the Labyrith. And books that enhance my experiences.