Avatar Legends: Why the Korra Era is Such a Great Era for Play
The Legend of Korra is the beloved sequel to the award-winning Avatar: The Last Airbender television series. Set 70 years after the end of the original series, The Legend of Korra follows the story of Korra—the new Avatar—as she faces various challenges in a world that has undergone significant industrial and technological advancements since Avatar Aang mastered the elements and saved the Four Nations from Fire Lord Ozai.
Although the series ended after four seasons nearly a decade ago, it still has a very active community on Reddit over at /r/legendofkorra with almost 250k users who discuss fan theories, upload art about their original characters, and offer help and advice to those who are looking for recommendations on watching the series for the first time.
In this article we’ll explore some of the most well-beloved aspects of this era, how the passionate The Legend of Korra Reddit community is a great resource for fans old and new, and how its most distinguishing characteristics are incorporated into the Avatar Legends: The Roleplaying Game. Want to find out why the Korra Era is such a great setting for your game? Read on!
Exploring Korra Era as a Playground
The enduring popularity of The Legend of Korra is the result of many factors, but one of them has to be its urban setting. Republic City, the capital of the newly-formed United Republic of Nations—and where most of the adventures in the show happen—is the direct descendant of Team Aang’s work in creating a safe place for benders and nonbenders from all around the world. It’s an immersive, expansive setting, ready to be explored further by anyone excited by a metropolitan playground of adventure.
Other features of Korra Era that are fun include how technology can now accomplish or surpass feats of bending, and enterprising inventors seem to be coming up with new technological innovations seemingly every other day. Parallel to that, bending has evolved to the point that previously rare forms of bending—such as lightning bending—have become commonplace. The practice of bending has even turned into a competitive team sport! All of these contribute to creating a diverse and challenging playground of playing opportunities.
The Avatar Spirit on Reddit
If you’re a fan of The Legend of Korra (or you’re getting interested in the show for the first time), one of the best starting points has to be, no doubt, the community on Reddit at /r/legendofkorra. The subreddit does an incredible job of fostering discussions, sharing fan art, theories, and insights about the series, and providing a place to talk about The Legend of Korra’s amazing setting.
Some examples of the high-quality content that can be found there include: Amon isn't a political revolutionary; he's a cult leader, a thread that discusses a new perspective on the villain of Season 1; this incredible cosplay of the series’ protagonist; and this incredible find of what must have been the inspiration for one of the main weapons in the hands of the Season 4 main villain. These and many more can be found at /r/legendofkorra.
Magpie Games’ Avatar Legends and Korra Era
Since the original series premiered in 2005, fans of Avatar: The Last Airbender have wanted to create their own stories set in that world. The award-winning Avatar Legends: The Roleplaying Game from Magpie Games is the first time they’ve had official tools to do so! And out of the five eras available in the game, the one set after the end of The Legend of Korra—referred to as “Korra Era”—has proven to be one of the most popular ones.
This should really come as no surprise! Korra Era allows players to play any type of bender and, moreover, technologist characters feel more at home in this than any other era. The Avatar Legends: Core Book offers not only specific themes and advice that follow along from where the series left off, but includes ample details and jumping-off points, so many that setting many adventures in this era should be fairly easy even for a newcomer!
Bending the Rules: Mechanics in Korra Era
But if you’d like to expand on the mechanics and rules found in the Core Book and capture the flavor and uniqueness of Korra Era, the newest supplement for the game—Avatar Legends: The Roleplaying Game: Republic City—is specifically centered on the main urban setting of The Legend of Korra, and includes specific new rules for modeling stories around pro-bending, mechas, and vehicle races.
Apart from those, players will find in this Setting Toolkit three new playbooks, dozens of new techniques for all trainings, a new full adventure centered around tunnel racing, and stat blocks for the characters from the show that hadn’t been statted yet. Overall, you now have all the tools you may want—and probably more!—to tell your own stories with your friends set in this fascinating era.
Crafting Your Pro-Bending Team
Let’s delve a little bit deeper on how the mechanics presented in the Setting Toolkit: Republic City can help you create adventures around pro-bending. In this case, the book offers a complete framework for having characters in the group be part of one pro-bending team, including moves they can pull off before and during a game that serves to gamify what one sees about this sport in The Legend of Korra.
But what about if one or more players don’t want to play pro-benders? Well, in that case, they can play roles related to the team, such as representation and coaching. These non pro-bending roles are supported by moves that can only be triggered by characters that are specifically not pro-benders. So, in conjunction, these rules allow you to play the ins and outs of stories centered around a pro-bending team, its successes and failures, and all the ensuing and engaging drama emerging from those.
From Screen to Table: Immersive Gameplay Experience
The Avatar Legends: Core Book section dedicated to Korra Era, on the other hand, includes five themes specific to this era, which should help you focus your game so that, even if you don’t know which elements you’d like to explore in your story, it’ll still feel like something that would belong in a spin-off show or some related property to The Legend of Korra. Some of them include: extremism born of fear, redemption, and industrialization vs. tradition. All five include GM tips and tricks specifically tailored to bring these into fruition during gameplay.
In addition to those, this section includes a summary and re-introduction of the most important events that have shaped this era so far, including those that occurred in the series proper and those that were explored in the comic book sequels, so they help you get a clear picture whether you just finished watching the show or never got to read those comic books. Thus, in this subsection you get a very detailed description of each main political division in the world, including the United Republic of Nations, the very-changed Earth Kingdom, and the newly-formed Air Nation, among others.
Finally, the Korra Era includes an overview of its most important current NPCs, and a list of threats and challenges—with a corresponding theme from the aforementioned, Era-specific list—that can easily be turned into exciting adventure hooks without much work.
Embrace the Avatar Spirit: Conclusion
Korra Era is an ideal milieu for exploring the most “modern” version of the Avatarverse, one that includes amazing forms of bending and mind-blowing technology, alongside deep philosophical and social issues without easy answers. It’s an ideal place to set a game that wants to push the boundaries of the Four Nations, discovering a new world alongside Korra and her friends while expanding what’s possible socially and politically.
If you’re ready to jump in, you’ll find all the tools you may possibly need in the Avatar Legends: Core Book and the new Republic City - Setting Toolkit. And if you ever find yourself looking for more content than you can possibly expose yourself to regarding Korra Era, remember that the community on Reddit over at /r/legendofkorra is waiting for you!
