DnD Head Canons

[noob]

Can confirm; I have met this dwarf several times across multiple campaigns and multiple DMs. He is inescapable.
Some instances of that dwarf also works in forges or teleports around and casts disintegrate.
The trick is that in its very long life it changed carrier a lot of times because after spending 10^143 years mining you want to do something else.

[Amdy_vill]

Hobgoblins have a Russian accent

Dwarves are Scottish

Thay is less evil than the books make it out to be. still evil but not mustache-twirling villain evil. more child-friendly Russia evil.

Krynn is the Frist World Created

Spelljammers are more common than the lore makes them out to be. in lore Spelljammers are very common but the books make them out to be kinda rare, I like to ply it up instead of being common their supper common. like people in small farming villages know what spelljammers are, not like by sight but have heard of them and maybe seen one or two.

all gods are *******s, I like the idea of dnd having a massively different morality from us and playing into that making the gods more *******-ish than the lore makes them out to be.

[noob]

Hobgoblins have a Russian accent

Dwarves are Scottish

Thay is less evil than the books make it out to be. still evil but not mustache-twirling villain evil. more child-friendly Russia evil.

Krynn is the Frist World Created

Spelljammers are more common than the lore makes them out to be. in lore Spelljammers are very common but the books make them out to be kinda rare, I like to ply it up instead of being common their supper common. like people in small farming villages know what spelljammers are, not like by sight but have heard of them and maybe seen one or two.

all gods are *******s, I like the idea of dnd having a massively different morality from us and playing into that making the gods more *******-ish than the lore makes them out to be.
You do not need a lot of effort if you are in the forgotten realms for the last thing.
Spelljammers being common makes a lot of sense.
It would explain why there is so many campaigns with them at some random place: spelljammers are precious so you would not find one stuck in a place often if they were rare.
Thay have explicitly slavery but it does not means they inflict cruelty to their slaves for no reason: while there is a lot of things oriented about slavery and violence against slaves in thay prcs and spells it could be a thing mostly to be used against slaves that escapes.
Nybor's Gentle Reminder is explicitly said to now be used mostly in fights by thayan mages while before it was used to motivate slaves through pain suggesting that the slave conditions in thay improved(so it is probably just horrible slavery instead of horrible slavery with gratuitous cruelty) so your headcannon seems compatible with the low amount of fluff I have read about thay.

[Amdy_vill]

You do not need a lot of effort if you are in the forgotten realms for the last thing.
Spelljammers being common makes a lot of sense.
It would explain why there is so many campaigns with them at some random place: spelljammers are precious so you would not find one stuck in a place often if they were rare.
Thay have explicitly slavery but it does not means they inflict cruelty to their slaves for no reason: while there is a lot of things oriented about slavery and violence against slaves in thay prcs and spells it could be a thing mostly to be used against slaves that escapes.
Nybor's Gentle Reminder is explicitly said to now be used mostly in fights by thayan mages while before it was used to motivate slaves through pain suggesting that the slave conditions in thay improved(so it is probably just horrible slavery instead of horrible slavery with gratuitous cruelty) so your headcannon seems compatible with the low amount of fluff I have read about thay.

I feel is compatible because more recent thay info dumps have been moving them towards my view. Thay is my personal favorite setting as I love to play necromancers that aren't evil and several sources call out thay for having that. Thay is just a great piece of lore that I wish got more attention.

[Bohandas]

I'd like to throw my support behind the suggestion by someone on one of the other threads that the fiendish familiar symbiont (Fiend Folio pg219) is a byproduct to Yugoloth promotion to ultraloth status. It's a little evil face from the lower planes, and yugoloths lose their faces when they become ultraloths

[Lvl45DM!]

About half the things that people chalk up to "crazy wizard did it" are just naturally or super-naturally occurring monsters. Owlbears are neither owls nor bears, just a super predator that evolved to hunt Dire Deer and Giant Rats. Otyughs evolved from various algae and bacteria that ate other stuff like that that evolved into black puddings.

[Bohandas]

About half the things that people chalk up to "crazy wizard did it" are just naturally or super-naturally occurring monsters. Owlbears are neither owls nor bears, just a super predator that evolved to hunt Dire Deer and Giant Rats.

I agree with this. It's like how in real life the platypus isn't closely releated to either the duck or to the beaver despite the fact that it looks dead on like both of them

[Eldan]

I remember some old, old comment about how owlbears might be related to some dinosaurs.

If you have a body a bit like a protoceratops, with a beaked head on a four-limbed body, plus feathers, like a lot of dinosaurs had, you're basically halfway there.
https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/b/b2/Protoceratops_andrewsi_-_IMG_0691.jpg

[RedMage125]

About half the things that people chalk up to "crazy wizard did it" are just naturally or super-naturally occurring monsters. Owlbears are neither owls nor bears, just a super predator that evolved to hunt Dire Deer and Giant Rats. Otyughs evolved from various algae and bacteria that ate other stuff like that that evolved into black puddings.

I say this as constructive criticism, and not an attempt to "debunk", but...

How does this explain the fact that (pre-5e) Otyughs can speak Common?

[noob]

I say this as constructive criticism, and not an attempt to "debunk", but...

How does this explain the fact that (pre-5e) Otyughs can speak Common?

Otyughs are smart enough for that so it is just a matter of having the right culture since there is not really such thing as "inadapted vocal chords" in dnd.

[Ajustusdaniel]

I agree with this. It's like how in real life the platypus isn't closely releated to either the duck or to the beaver despite the fact that it looks dead on like both of them

The platypus also has venomous ankle spurs, no stomach, sense electricity through their beak, sweat milk, glow green under ultraviolet light and lay eggs. I'm not entirely prepared to rule out the possibility that there was a wizard involved.

[Archpaladin Zousha]

I say this as constructive criticism, and not an attempt to "debunk", but...

How does this explain the fact that (pre-5e) Otyughs can speak Common?
Wait, they can't speak Common in 5e? That was the best thing about them! :smalleek:

I hereby headcanon that 5e otyughs can speak Common just like in previous editions. :smallcool:

[Bohandas]

Otyughs are smart enough for that so it is just a matter of having the right culture since there is not really such thing as "inadapted vocal chords" in dnd.

I'm sure I've seen notes in monster entries to the effect that certain monsters can understand but not speak certain languages

[PhoenixPhyre]

I'm sure I've seen notes in monster entries to the effect that certain monsters can understand but not speak certain languages

They're all over the place. Including lots of the beasts and a bunch of undead--the skeleton has "Understands all languages it knew in life but can't speak".

[noob]

They're all over the place. Including lots of the beasts and a bunch of undead--the skeleton has "Understands all languages it knew in life but can't speak".
The skeleton have no vocal chords and the beasts that can understand a language but not speak it specifically(ex: can understand common but not speak it) can then speak any new language they learn(by raw).
So it suggests the problem is cultural in their case.

[PairO'Dice Lost]

How does this explain the fact that (pre-5e) Otyughs can speak Common?

Not only do Otyughs speak Common, but so do most things that can speak at all, even things like Krakens that rarely if ever interact with surface races, Chuuls whose mouthparts are nowhere near humanoid-like, and Gibbering Mouthers who are for all practical purposes insane. Further, Common isn't just the common tongue of a single region or a single world, but a multiversal constant: people from Oerth, Toril, and Krynn can chat with each other in Common over drinks, and spelljamming crews can drop in on a random backwater planet and say hi to the locals in Common, and everyone can understand each other just fine even if certain worlds have their own regional languages or dialects.

For those reasons, it's my headcanon that Common is just as much a primordial or fundamental language as Draconic, the outsider and elemental languages, and other languages spoken by highly-magical (near-)immortal beings. Draconic is a language of power, strongly associated with magical writings and possibly related to the Language Primeval; Celestial is a language of perfection, believed to descend from the same language as the Words of Creation; and Common is a language of unity, facilitating communication regardless of physiology, psychology, origin, or any other factors. Every single sapient race or creature that can speak at all becomes able to speak Common (or a dialect like Undercommon) as soon as they evolve or are created (though some creatures may eventually evolve to not speak it, such as some aquatic or Plane of Water creatures that now only speak Aquan due to never having the opportunity to use Common).

Also, dragons, celestials and fiends, and elementals have special exclusive magic/templates/etc. (breath weapon spells, spells with Archon components, etc.), can crossbreed with just about anything due to their intrinsic magical nature (see: all the Half-X templates), and have their own fancy magical languages, right? Well, humans are famous for sleeping with just about anything to produce half-elves, half-orcs, lots of genasi, tons of planetouched, and so forth, and they're also uniquely receptive to magical mutation or transformation into elan, azurins, illumians, kalashtar, and the like; there are a bunch of human- and human-offshoot-specific options (especially in Races of Destiny), and part-humans can take advantage of their non-human blood for even more options; and Common is often said to be (or have been derived from) a singular multiverse-spanning original human language. Coincidence? I think not. :smallamused:

[No brains]

I remember some old, old comment about how owlbears might be related to some dinosaurs.

If you have a body a bit like a protoceratops, with a beaked head on a four-limbed body, plus feathers, like a lot of dinosaurs had, you're basically halfway there.
https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/b/b2/Protoceratops_andrewsi_-_IMG_0691.jpg

IIRC the Owlbear was one of the original D&D monsters that came from a pack of cheap plastic 'dinosaurs'. Art imitates life, I guess.

[Luccan]

IIRC the Owlbear was one of the original D&D monsters that came from a pack of cheap plastic 'dinosaurs'. Art imitates life, I guess.

The bulette as well. Speaking of, here's my "head canon": it's pronounced bullet. Now, I know some of you will be surprised, as I was, to hear that's not the original pronunciation the guys at TSR intended (for official release). According to Tim Kask, they did call it a bullet at first, but changed the spelling and moreover pronunciation to boo-lay because for whatever reason they thought that would be a funny way to mock the French. Or people's obsession with the French language? Was that a thing in the 70s? Anyway, that's a dumb sounding name which I've also been informed isn't even accurate to how you would pronounce that monster name even if it were French, so we arrive at my head canon that it's just pronounced bullet. And not BOO-let or boo-LET either, which I've also heard.

Slaadi aren't a threat to most planes/people because they usually find the consistency of everywhere that isn't their home plane dull

[Silly Name]

The bulette as well. Speaking of, here's my "head canon": it's pronounced bullet. Now, I know some of you will be surprised, as I was, to hear that's not the original pronunciation the guys at TSR intended (for official release). According to Tim Kask, they did call it a bullet at first, but changed the spelling and moreover pronunciation to boo-lay because for whatever reason they thought that would be a funny way to mock the French. Or people's obsession with the French language? Was that a thing in the 70s? Anyway, that's a dumb sounding name which I've also been informed isn't even accurate to how you would pronounce that monster name even if it were French, so we arrive at my head canon that it's just pronounced bullet. And not BOO-let or boo-LET either, which I've also heard.


Uh, pretty funny. Here in Italy I've always heard it pronounced "BOO-let", which sounds vaguely French now that I think about it.

We also apparently pronounce a lot of names "wrong" since books don't really come with a pronunciation guide and we obviously default to different pronunciation rules than American English. I still refuse to make "drow" rhyme with "cow".

[Archpaladin Zousha]

The DM I play with on Skype is like that: he pronounces "drow" like "crow."

[Luccan]

Uh, pretty funny. Here in Italy I've always heard it pronounced "BOO-let", which sounds vaguely French now that I think about it.

We also apparently pronounce a lot of names "wrong" since books don't really come with a pronunciation guide and we obviously default to different pronunciation rules than American English. I still refuse to make "drow" rhyme with "cow".

Eh, that's a little different. Perhaps I shouldn't have been so all-encompassing. My issue is with primary American English speakers pronouncing it in odd ways for seemingly no reason or to deliberately make the pronunciation "off". I would object to the other pronunciations significantly less than Boo-lay

[Cicciograna]

Uh, pretty funny. Here in Italy I've always heard it pronounced "BOO-let", which sounds vaguely French now that I think about it.

We also apparently pronounce a lot of names "wrong" since books don't really come with a pronunciation guide and we obviously default to different pronunciation rules than American English. I still refuse to make "drow" rhyme with "cow".

That's interesting, because I'm from Italy too, and I always pronounced it as boo-LET. Come to think of it, I have absolutely no idea why I picked this pronunciation, it just sort of came to me.

But yeah, for me "drow" rhymes with "though".

But then, the word "bow" can be pronounced in two different ways, depending on if it's referring to a kowtow or to a weapon.

[Bohandas]

The Athar are right regarding the gods. This is less headcanon, and more strict rules as written (at least in 3.x). The gods (as written in Deities and Demigod have a passel of themed abilities, but with few exceptions have little special ability to control their portfolio in an overarching manner or from across the planes. And they all have more or less the same abilities because the themed abilities are all redundant with the alter reality ability that most of them have. So none of them are really the 'god of x' or 'god of y', they're just a hobbyist interested in x or y who happens to have a lot of paranormal abilities.

[SpyOne]

(snip) ... they thought that would be a funny way to mock the French. Or people's obsession with the French language? Was that a thing in the 70s?
In the population in general? No.
Among people discussing mideval weapons and armor? Yes, yes, a thousand times yes. Then, now, and always.
Knock-down, drag-out fights over how to pronounce "trebuchet" that led a lot of people to start saying "tree-bucket".
Arguments over how to pronounce the "ch" in machicolation (which depends on whether the word came from French or directly from Latin).
And endless arguments about whether both French and anglicized pronunciations are acceptable or whether only one, and which one. (There are a precious few words that came into French from English.)

[Luccan]

In the population in general? No.
Among people discussing mideval weapons and armor? Yes, yes, a thousand times yes. Then, now, and always.
Knock-down, drag-out fights over how to pronounce "trebuchet" that led a lot of people to start saying "tree-bucket".
Arguments over how to pronounce the "ch" in machicolation (which depends on whether the word came from French or directly from Latin).
And endless arguments about whether both French and anglicized pronunciations are acceptable or whether only one, and which one. (There are a precious few words that came into French from English.)

Honestly, Tree-Bucket is a good euonym for a trebuchet. But that makes sense, with Gary and all those guys coming from the war game scene and making a medieval fantasy game.

[Bohandas]

But yeah, for me "drow" rhymes with "though".

It is now part of my headcanon that the dark elves are all named Drew

nvm. Misread your post. I thought you said rhymes with "through" not "though"

[vasilidor]

beware the drew, they like the darker places in the world.

I love it.

[Satinavian]

Uh, pretty funny. Here in Italy I've always heard it pronounced "BOO-let", which sounds vaguely French now that I think about it.

We also apparently pronounce a lot of names "wrong" since books don't really come with a pronunciation guide and we obviously default to different pronunciation rules than American English. I still refuse to make "drow" rhyme with "cow".
In the German translation it is called Landhai, which means land shark. Presumable one reason why they changed it is because "bulette" is just a minced meat dish here.

I still always get hungry when i read bulette in some English D&D text.

[Eldan]

Landshark is in the English monster manual too, as an alternate name of the monster.

[Bohandas]

Ok, I thought I figured out a way to explain how there can be multiple unaffiliated gods of the same sun by analogy with rival cellphone carriers or internet service providers that all connect you to the same network. But then I realized that I don't understand how those work either.

[PairO'Dice Lost]

Ok, I thought I figured out a way to explain how there can be multiple unaffiliated gods of the same sun by analogy with rival cellphone carriers or internet service providers that all connect you to the same network. But then I realized that I don't understand how those work either.

That's a pretty good analogy. The ELI5 version of the technology is that ISPs and carriers can either use different hardware (separate cables or their own cell towers) to deliver their own service to you or there can be shared infrastructure (a single cable hook-up to a house or a single cell tower network) on which the different ISPs and carriers rent capacity to deliver their services, and in the latter case so long as the different companies are using different protocols, different portions of the spectrum, etc. there won't be interference.

In the case of competing gods, you have the single set of "hardware" (the sun) and each god provides different "service" (divine casting) to their "users" (priests) on different metaphysical "channels" (portfolios) and in different "service areas" (pantheons). Ao, then, would be Realmspace's "government regulating agency" who forbids multiple gods from existing with the same portfolios in the same pantheons because the "interference" from multiple gods using the same "frequencies" would provide a poor user experience for the gods' respective priests.

You can extend the analogy to a bunch of other magic-related concepts: a priest of Pelor who ends up on Toril can draw power from Lathander because Pelor and Lathander have "roaming" agreements, changing faiths requires some sort of quest or other demonstration of faith because you have to port your "number" to the new "network," and so forth.

[a_flemish_guy]

In the German translation it is called Landhai, which means land shark. Presumable one reason why they changed it is because "bulette" is just a minced meat dish here.

I still always get hungry when i read bulette in some English D&D text.


Landshark is in the English monster manual too, as an alternate name of the monster.

I once read they once asked one of designers how bullete ought to be pronounced and he said "I don't know, I just call it a landshark"

[Kane0]

Bouncing off the idea the magic (‘the weave’) is generated by the friction between planes:

Mechanus relies on this to keep the planar cogs moving in a sort of catch 22. Perfect order and uniformity would take away the power source and grind the gears to a stop.

Each plane is ‘infinite’ in some way by necessity, acting as a sink to combat overflow.

Mortals like to blame gods for cataclysmic events but in many instances they are as much victims as the mortals are. Planar ‘earthquakes’ cause all sorts of chaos and more often than not the highly magically inclined are more severely affected by any distuptions. Which reminds me I should probably come up with some magic counterpart to tectonic verbiage.

[Bohandas]

Changelings, in acknowledgement of their ability to freely change shape, all have names that could apply to either sex. ie. "Tracy" "Jamie" "Ash" "Sam" "Fran" "Paris" "Sandy" "Carmen" etc.

[Beleriphon]

The bulette as well. Speaking of, here's my "head canon": it's pronounced bullet. Now, I know some of you will be surprised, as I was, to hear that's not the original pronunciation the guys at TSR intended (for official release). According to Tim Kask, they did call it a bullet at first, but changed the spelling and moreover pronunciation to boo-lay because for whatever reason they thought that would be a funny way to mock the French. Or people's obsession with the French language? Was that a thing in the 70s? Anyway, that's a dumb sounding name which I've also been informed isn't even accurate to how you would pronounce that monster name even if it were French, so we arrive at my head canon that it's just pronounced bullet. And not BOO-let or boo-LET either, which I've also heard.

I always went with bew-let, like Ferris Bueller.

[Gemini Lupus]

Gnomes and halflings belong to the same race but are two subraces - gnome is the race’s proper name, while halfling is a derogatory term, used by the “big folk.” Two children from the same parents may manifest the racial traits of either “halflings” or “gnomes.” And they only have three fingers and a thumb (like gelflings in the Dark Crystal). This is mostly because I think the two races are too close to fulfilling the same niche in most campaign settings among the standard races

On that same note, racial traits from the various subraces may manifest in any member of a particular race - two wood elves may give birth to a high elf, though it might be less likely. The exception is the drow (rhymes with plow :wink:) who are their own distinct race, separate from the rest of elvenkind.

Gnomish cuisine is made up of exotic foods such as pizza, tacos, spaghetti and meatballs, and sauced chicken wings. What are the culinary arts if not alchemy after all?

Dwarven beards are courser than human beards, produce special oils, and have mites which clean bacteria and such from the beards, all to function as a filtration system for all the dust they would otherwise inhale from their mine-work. Thus, shaving a dwarf’s beard is not just a cultural insult, but actually depriving them of a key element of their biology.

I’m certain I have more, I just can’t think of them right now.

[PairO'Dice Lost]

Gnomes and halflings belong to the same race but are two subraces - gnome is the race’s proper name, while halfling is a derogatory term, used by the “big folk.” Two children from the same parents may manifest the racial traits of either “halflings” or “gnomes.” And they only have three fingers and a thumb (like gelflings in the Dark Crystal). This is mostly because I think the two races are too close to fulfilling the same niche in most campaign settings among the standard races

I used to do something similar back in the AD&D days but with dwarves instead of halflings, as the original metagame niche that gnomes fulfilled was basically "dwarves but with magic" since dwarves couldn't be arcane casters. I basically said that whatever arcane ability was present in humans and elves was somehow dormant in dwarves thanks to their innate magic resistance, like some sort of magical gene with dominant "magic-resistant" and recessive "magic-capable" alleles, so physically-weaker-but-magically-capable dwarves would pop up once in a blue moon and what humans knew as "gnomes" were basically true-breeding populations of those unusual dwarves who'd gone off and made their own communities.


On that same note, racial traits from the various subraces may manifest in any member of a particular race - two wood elves may give birth to a high elf, though it might be less likely. The exception is the drow (rhymes with plow :wink:) who are their own distinct race, separate from the rest of elvenkind.

I like the explanation that because elves are so long-lived that natural selection is basically irrelevant on a species-wide level, elves basically evolve to fit their environment on an individual level to compensate. It's not that wood elves live in the woods, arctic elves live in the arctic, etc. because they're adapted to those environments, but rather an elf born and raised in the woods becomes a wood elf, one born and raised in the arctic becomes an arctic elf, and so on, and most elven communities are made up of just one subrace of elf because if a wood elf moves to a high elf city their kids become high elves so they literally can't maintain populations of multiple elven subraces in one place over time.

[Sharur]

Gnomes and halflings belong to the same race but are two subraces - gnome is the race’s proper name, while halfling is a derogatory term, used by the “big folk.”

....racial traits from the various subraces may manifest in any member of a particular race - two wood elves may give birth to a high elf, though it might be less likely. The exception is the drow (rhymes with plow :wink:) who are their own distinct race, separate from the rest of elvenkind.

Conversely,
Gnomes are descendants of pairings between dwarves and elves, while halflings are descendants of pairings between dwarves and humans. They are shorter than either of their lineages due to outbreeding depression (which is a real thing). (The Muls of Darksun are also dwarf/human hybrids, but they are sterile).

In contrast, half-elves and half-orcs don't "merit" a unique name, because they don't "breed true" and can't maintain a stable population. A half-elf that mates with an elf will produce elvish progeny, the children of two half elves will be human 45% of the time, an elf 45% of the time and half-elf the remaining 10% of the time.

Subraces are more cultures than ethnicities (except for dragonborn)...Mountain dwarves live in regimented subterranean communities with mandatory military service, while Hill Dwarves live in more diverse, above ground settings where they grow up breathing fresher air; Wood Elves societies attempted to run and hid from the Archfey while Ancient High elves tried playing their games (mostly aiming to become vassals). Drow aren't born as Drow, but are elves "made" into Drow as infants, via a ritual dedicating them to Lloth involving injecting the infant with spider venom (which has a very high mortality rate). Varying depictions of Drow skin tone are the result of this ritual performed with different species of spiders.

There are no morally neutral dragons; dragons have binary, rather than trinary moralities. Dragons wear their hearts on their scales. A Metalic dragon that falls "below" good will go straight to evil, and become the corresponding Chromatic type(E.g. a falling Gold Dragon will become a Red Dragon); likewise, a Green Dragon who rises "above" evil will shoot into being good and a brass dragon.

Adult and older metallic dragons have secondary breath-weapons due to learning how to perform alchemy using the metals in their scales.

Alignments are semi-sentient/super-sentient. Non-neutral souls eventually are absorbed into these "alignments" and then are "reincarnated" as outsiders(angels, devils, demons, morons, etc.). Neutral souls are reincarnated in the Material Plane. All of the things that are reincarnated in the Material plane are the material plane's version of "outsiders". The Material Plane is the middle layer of the "Neutral" plane, along with the Feywild and the Shadowfell.

Slaadi don't belong to the Chaotic Neutral plane, they belong to the Neutral Chaotic Evil plane (Pandemonium), but are drawn to the Spawning Stone.

Limbo isn't the Chaotic Neutral plane; The Chaotic Neutral plane is the Elemental Chaos, which has "layers" of the classical elements, and Elementals are the Chaotic Neutral "outsiders"; Limbo is a relatively stable region of the Elemental Chaos, formed around the Spawning Stone.

Deities are former mortals(like Mystara Immortals), who exemplified an alignment in life; Their absorption/reincarnation has been delayed so that they can serve as an interface between their alignment and mortals...Essentially they are super-clerics in service to their alignments.

[PhoenixPhyre]

For a setting where fixed alignments aren't a thing:

The difference between chromatic and metallic dragons is whether they can change their shape. Metallics can, chromatics never decided to learn how. But if they do, their scales change.

90+% of the time, metallic also means spellcaster.

Also, cats were originally intended as psychopomps. That's why they can see ghosts. Many have forgotten or never learned this.


Those that do know this secret can walk into the border of the Ethereal through people's shadows and speak in mortal tongues if they wish. Most are way too lazy and prefer to just be treated like royalty though, so they don't.

[Spore]

I never truly got the "Orcs are corrupted elves/bad cloning experiments". It makes much much more sense for them to be dwarf clones. Both are hale and hearty, both have darkvision, dwell in caverns and they hate each other as much as only estranged siblings can. Yes I understand they are the antithesis of many elven traits, but that is what makes me doubt their common heritage. Now every other D&D setting has their own origination myth for orcs, but if you have dwarves, they are brothers.

[Archpaladin Zousha]

Fantasy Flight's Midnight setting did that! They even had hybrids called "dworgs." Unfortunately, being a dark fantasy setting where the Sauron analogue won, most dworgs have "really ugly backstory." :smallannoyed:

[Gemini Lupus]

I never truly got the "Orcs are corrupted elves/bad cloning experiments". It makes much much more sense for them to be dwarf clones. Both are hale and hearty, both have darkvision, dwell in caverns and they hate each other as much as only estranged siblings can. Yes I understand they are the antithesis of many elven traits, but that is what makes me doubt their common heritage. Now every other D&D setting has their own origination myth for orcs, but if you have dwarves, they are brothers.

Like many tropes in D&D, this comes from Tolkien - Orcs were created by Morgoth when he captured and tortured some elves, twisting and corrupting them until they became something no longer resembling elves.

[hamishspence]

And Tolkien himself wasn't exactly satisfied with that explanation for orcs, and dabbled in others, such as "twisted humans" rather than "twisted elves" - or even "uplifted animals".

[PhoenixPhyre]

And Tolkien himself wasn't exactly satisfied with that explanation for orcs, and dabbled in others, such as "twisted humans" rather than "twisted elves" - or even "uplifted animals".

My current setting uses "humans and orcs are both artificial offshoots of hobgoblins, created roughly at the same time by opposing forces of elves. As usual, it got out of hand."

[Bohandas]

Olidammara started out as a teickster armadillo god and hangs out with a whose posse of other trickster animal gods

[Asmotherion]

-Boccob created magic so that mortals wouldn't bother him with prayers etc. Basically the Deity version of "you can figure it out yourself".

-Lloth was jealous of Corellon and how everyone in the pantheon adored him, and that was the reason she betrayed him. I'm also kinda convinced there was kind of a Zeus-Hera dynamic in the relationship (as they are portraied in "Hercules, the legendary journey").

-The intention for the original Demons was that they would be somehow related to the Far Realm, and basically be the "Lovecraftian Horrors" based versions of the D&D multiverse; Aberations were originally meant to be "Alien-based" creatures.

-Dwarves are just small Giants, the same way Gnomes are small Elves and Halfings are small Humans. Also, Goblins with Hobgoblins, Orcs with Ogres and Kobolts with Dragonborn share a similar relation, as in "they are basically different races of the same species" or even "it all started when (insert lager race) has a multiple instances of dwarfism, who made their own settlements, and created the first (insert small race).

-Dragons, especially Metalic ones pass most of their time in Humanoid or Animal form, and blend into society and/or the wildlife. They leave a simulacrum that is way weaker in magic than themselves, and it appears to be sleeping because it's mostly meant to scare would-be thieves, but is much weaker than the original. That's why a lot of Dragons don't usually cast spells in combat; it's a finite resource, as they are Simulacrums.

-Liches deliberatelly circulate false rumors among the centuaries of what object their Phylactery is. They are smart enough to hide their true phylactery in a demiplane that is accessible only by them.

-On the subject of Liches; Since their soul basicaly hides inside the Phylactery, they are practically Ghosts who Remote Control an Undead that acts as their Avatar (kinda how we control a Character in a First Person Video Game). The undead body is made to believe that it is the one that makes the decisions, and is completelly unaware that it is a different entity than the Lich Soul controling it.

-Summoning a monster does not conjure it's real body; It just conjures a part of it's subconsious that replicates it's personality, and creates a magical temporary body for it. That is why summoned monsters don't really die. (I'm not sure if this is cannon or not, but that was always the way I interpreted it).

-Asmodeus doesn't really need to consume food, and rarelly does so. But when he does, either socially, or just for pleasure, he doesn't eat any meal... just deserts.

-Szass Tam and Larloch are drinking buddies. They meet at the end of each centuary, and discuss memories and evil ideas. And yes, their drink of choice is a Bottle of Black Lotus Extract bottled at the begining of each centuary.

That's the ones I remember right now. I'll add if I remember anything else.

[PhoenixPhyre]

As to giants and dwarves:

My setting canonically states that both giants and dwarves are related to goliaths.

Specifically, giants are formed from goliaths who undergo a runic ritual. The original intent of this was to make titans, but that path got broken long ago by some greedy titans. So now storm giants are as close as it gets.

Those same titans, as part of breaking things, drained the runic nature out of masses of their lesser kin, turning them into dwarves.

So dwarves and goliaths are descendants of the same ur-race, and giants are "promoted" goliaths. Giant kin (ogres, etc) are the offspring of failed promotion attempts or the direct result. Ironically, giants are sterile, but failed giants breed true.

[Hopeless]

*The power a deity gains through worshippers has a strongly diminishing return as number of followers increases beyond a certain point, hence why unpopular deities seem to be more active. The popular deities are over extended, as they reach a point where adding followers merely adds more duties

This is actually true in my campaign.

A Lantern Archon in service to Sehanine Moonbow has twice kicked down the Divine Gates to drag a specific god out to answer a request for aid.

In the first instance it was Pelor and amused the Stormlord so much that they dropped a permanent thunderstorm atop of the Dawnfather Cathedral in Gilieam thats been usurped by the Cult of the Strife Emperor.

In the second occasion Kestra mocked Melora into acting after her Temple in Wrenn was taken over by the Cloaked Serpent using Naga Spawn (think Gou'ald meet Slaad or Illithid) who responded by causing an Earthquake to collape the Cloaked Serpent Portals beneath the church they had usurped.

I'm running a Cleric in another campaign who is a member of this faith, I've yet to experience a scene where my cleric introduces herself as a Follower of Kestra and asked "Who?!", but I'm still hoping!

[KillianHawkeye]

-On the subject of Liches; Since their soul basicaly hides inside the Phylactery, they are practically Ghosts who Remote Control an Undead that acts as their Avatar (kinda how we control a Character in a First Person Video Game). The undead body is made to believe that it is the one that makes the decisions, and is completelly unaware that it is a different entity than the Lich Soul controling it.

TIL that liches invented magical VR through necromancy. :smallamused:

[Bohandas]

When a petitioner becomes one with their deity, they essentially become a free extra aspect or proxy

[Starlit Dragon]

The story of the drow is false, backwards even. The High Elves were once matriarchal slavers of "lesser races". Revolution came, and the elves that refused to change were driven away, where they would eventually settle in the Underdark. Demons took advantage of this and corrupted Lolth.

[Stattick]

Mortals are food for the gods.

When you die, you go to your god. But it isn't an eternal life. You can still die in the afterlife. When you do, your energy is absorbed by the god you serve, one of their servants, and/or absorbed by the realm of the plane you reside on. Either way, your death in the afterlife adds to your god's power. The whole thing about souls being devoured and used as currency in The Lower Planes is just a slightly more expedient form of the same thing. There's nothing mortals can do to change this. All you can do is make an informed decision as to who you want to feed in the afterlife. Or plan to scramble hard in the afterlife to get on top of the pile of corpses, so you're one of the eaters instead of one of the eaten.

[noob]

Mortals are food for the gods.

When you die, you go to your god. But it isn't an eternal life. You can still die in the afterlife. When you do, your energy is absorbed by the god you serve, one of their servants, and/or absorbed by the realm of the plane you reside on. Either way, your death in the afterlife adds to your god's power. The whole thing about souls being devoured and used as currency in The Lower Planes is just a slightly more expedient form of the same thing. There's nothing mortals can do to change this. All you can do is make an informed decision as to who you want to feed in the afterlife. Or plan to scramble hard in the afterlife to get on top of the pile of corpses, so you're one of the eaters instead of one of the eaten.

It is way too setting dependant (there is settings where when you die it is instantly over and nobody benefits except if they are close enough to cast a spell on the corpse) and works only for people worshipping something.
Specify the setting for which you made this headcannon.

[Stattick]

It is way too setting dependant (there is settings where when you die it is instantly over and nobody benefits except if they are close enough to cast a spell on the corpse) and works only for people worshipping something.
Specify the setting for which you made this headcannon.

Forgotten Realms

[Taevyr]

-Boccob created magic so that mortals wouldn't bother him with prayers etc. Basically the Deity version of "you can figure it out yourself".

"Give a man magical solutions and he, his pals, and all his descendants will bother you every day for more of it. Teach a man how to create magical solutions and you'll be left alone before you know it."

[hamishspence]

The "you will eventually die again in the afterlife" thing is very much true in 4e at least.

[noob]

Is there is an afterafterlife for people that die in the afterlife?

[Bohandas]

The "you will eventually die again in the afterlife" thing is very much true in 4e at least.

And in 2e and 3e.

(I'm not familiar with 1e or 5e and can't speak for them)

[noob]

And in 2e and 3e.

(I'm not familiar with 1e or 5e and can't speak for them)

In 3e and 2e there is also settings with no afterlife at all I believe.(while I am not sure 4e had those too)

[Bohandas]

*Elves are hipsters
**All forms of magical tattoos were invented by elves as part of being hipsters

[Spore]

*Elves are hipsters
**All forms of magical tattoos were invented by elves as part of being hipsters

***I want to cast magic, and we are incredibly bored in our millenium long life spans, and we cannot go above 9th circle spells, so OF ****ING COURSE I WANT TO CAST MAGIC WITH TATTOOS!

[Stattick]

***I want to cast magic, and we are incredibly bored in our millenium long life spans, and we cannot go above 9th circle spells, so OF ****ING COURSE I WANT TO CAST MAGIC WITH TATTOOS!

Just imagine being one of the people with an early prototype tattoo. "Good news, it works. Bad news, sometimes it wild surges."

[Batcathat]

Just imagine being one of the people with an early prototype tattoo. "Good news, it works. Bad news, sometimes it wild surges."

On the upside, those are the very hipsterest of elvish hipsters. "I got a magical tattoo before it was cool (or safe)!"

[Spore]

On the upside, those are the very hipsterest of elvish hipsters. "I got a magical tattoo before it was cool (or safe)!"

There is a new trend, magical brandings and piercings. Though these ones are more Dwarven than Elven. A few people tried it, you might recall the ruins of Myth Drannor. Yeah, burning magical markings and treefolk don't mix.

[Wizard_Lizard]

That if there is a material, someone has made a golem of it.
Cheese golems I am looking at you. Horace

[quinron]

Lizardfolk's relative primitiveness comes from the fact that they're recently liberated slaves of the yuan-ti/serpentfolk who are just now starting to build their own society. That's also why the yuan-ti/serpentfolk empires are in such sharp decline.

[noob]

That if there is a material, someone has made a golem of it.
Cheese golems I am looking at you. Horace

I believe golem golems and brains golems are things too.(why???)
As is golem made out of evil and golem made out of good(there is surprisingly no golem made out of law or golem made out of chaos among the dnd 3.5 golems)

[Cicciograna]

That if there is a material, someone has made a golem of it.
Cheese golems I am looking at you. Horace

I remember that in a supplement, published I think for April's Fool, WotC introduced us to the glory that is the Calzone Golem.

[quinron]

I believe golem golems and brains golems are things too.(why???)
As is golem made out of evil and golem made out of good(there is surprisingly no golem made out of law or golem made out of chaos among the dnd 3.5 golems)

As an aside - one of my favorite books, China Mieville's Iron Council, has a main character who's a golem crafter. In the climax of the book, he stops the bad guys from killing his friends by

making a golem out of time.

[Bohandas]

As per the movie Labyrinth some goblins look like David Bowie

[Luccan]

As per the movie Labyrinth some goblins look like David Bowie

As per the movie Spiderman some goblins look like Willem Dafoe

[Adrastos42]

As per the movie Labyrinth some goblins look like David Bowie

Much like a dominant male orangutan developing cheekpads, as a goblin rises in power and authority and becomes a Goblin King, they begin to look more and more Bowielike.

[No brains]

I think Bowie is a goblin in a context outside of the taxonomic context for the word 'goblin' in D&D. I think he's a generalized boogeymanoid being.

However I would support hobgoblins looking exactly like Bowie, Dafoe, or like Creedence Leonore Geigud from Troll 2. I guess hobgoblins look like humans wearing a lot of makeup.

[ideasmith]

The following crosses all result in halflings:

Dwarf/Gnome
Dwarf/Elf
Dwarf/Human
Gnome/Elf
Gnome/Human
A variety of other, generally similar cross-breeds.

That is why they are called halflings.

Given the variety of sizes in sentient beings, it doesn't make sense for the name to refer to their size.

[Luccan]

Given the variety of sizes in sentient beings, it doesn't make sense for the name to refer to their size.

It does if the default assumption is that Common is the human tongue (which it usually seems to be) and that the word for halfling in other languages isn't literally translated as "half person". I think in FR their own name for themselves is hin. In one of my own settings they're called halflings because they're the only humanoid allies humans have had since pre-history. Basically humans introduced them to everyone else as halflings and they rolled with it because they're used to living in a world mostly populated by, relatively speaking, giants. I'm also exclusively using Ghostwise Halflings for that setting, so I just picked "The Ghostwise" for what they call themselves.

I do like your head canon though. But why does it make them all so short? At least two of those pairings are a foot or more taller than tall halflings.

[ebarde]

I wonder if some halflings dislike that name, as they feel it derives from a medium-centric perspective. Some could even as a joke start calling humans doublings or something, while others wonder why gnomes don't receive a similar treatment or something lol

But looking at the real world, I think we can see plenty of examples of naming that isn't really the most accurate and just stuck around cause people got used to it. Ultimately a lot of people don't really care about accuracy, and will just use what get's the information across. Iceland and Greenland are good examples of names that don't really give off the most accurate idea of the place they're trying to convey. I can only assume halflings could have just as well been the names for gnomes or goblins, and it being just a completely arbitrary name that just stuck, maybe at one point the term could have been inclusive of all small races and then it just became exclusive to one as language changed

[No brains]

The word halfling is comes from a mistranslation that attempted to describe them as pastoral farmers.

The intended message was, "We are people of the pitchfork."

It came out as, "Our people are 'hay-flings'.":smalltongue:

[Wizard_Lizard]

Celestials are just aberrations that got trapped in the upper planes. Explains biblical angels.

[a_flemish_guy]

The bulette as well. Speaking of, here's my "head canon": it's pronounced bullet. Now, I know some of you will be surprised, as I was, to hear that's not the original pronunciation the guys at TSR intended (for official release). According to Tim Kask, they did call it a bullet at first, but changed the spelling and moreover pronunciation to boo-lay because for whatever reason they thought that would be a funny way to mock the French. Or people's obsession with the French language? Was that a thing in the 70s? Anyway, that's a dumb sounding name which I've also been informed isn't even accurate to how you would pronounce that monster name even if it were French, so we arrive at my head canon that it's just pronounced bullet. And not BOO-let or boo-LET either, which I've also heard.

Slaadi aren't a threat to most planes/people because they usually find the consistency of everywhere that isn't their home plane dull


new headcannon: uplifted landsharks answer their sendings "bulette residence, lady of the house speaking, no not bullet, boulée"

[Bohandas]

The Demiplane of Dread is actually a secret layer of Carceri

[Stattick]

If you go east, off the map of the known continent in the Ravenloft setting, you'll find Westeros.

[Bohandas]

Actually, on further consideration, I think the Plane of Dread may be connected with Sigil somehow. The Lady's absolute control of who can come and go mirrors that of a darklord, as does the fact that she might not be able to leave. Furthermore, Vecna breaking out of one and into the other with the same magic ritual suggests some connection as well

[Spore]

As per the movie Spiderman some goblins look like Willem Dafoe


Much like a dominant male orangutan developing cheekpads, as a goblin rises in power and authority and becomes a Goblin King, they begin to look more and more Bowielike.


The following crosses all result in halflings:

Dwarf/Gnome
Dwarf/Elf
Dwarf/Human
Gnome/Elf
Gnome/Human
A variety of other, generally similar cross-breeds.

That is why they are called halflings.

Given the variety of sizes in sentient beings, it doesn't make sense for the name to refer to their size.

Considering the use of the insult "goblin" in modern languages, it is far more likely that everything not visually pleasing and small is referred to as goblins.


The Demiplane of Dread is actually a secret layer of Carceri


Actually, on further consideration, I think the Plane of Dread may be connected with Sigil somehow. The Lady's absolute control of who can come and go mirrors that of a darklord, as does the fact that she might not be able to leave. Furthermore, Vecna breaking out of one and into the other with the same magic ritual suggests some connection as well

I think the idea behind the Demiplanes of Dread is that they can exist literally in any cosmology, as long as they are - well demiplanes of eternal torment and punishment. I can see them existing in Eberron's nightmare and dream realm of Dal Quor. They basically are ever lasting nightmares.

Though I personally reject the headcanon (or even canon) that all D&D planes are somewhat connected. Especially the weird idea of Elminster having a wizarding pupil from Earth. One can make such connection but should veil their transitions in mist, because interplanar stuff quickly becomes a pissing contest between extremes, where planes just become planets of hats rather than fully fledged worlds each of their own.

[Luccan]

White and Silver Dragons don't expel cold, they suck in heat.

The most common Chromatic and Metallic dragons derive from the same ancient dragons based on element (Reds and Golds, Blues and Bronze, etc. share ancestry). The exception is that Green and Brass dragons share an ancestry, despite having different elemental affinity. However, they're also the most similar of the opposing forces in personality, valuing intelligent "treasures" and trickery as sport and tactics. Academics debate if the sleep breath of Brass dragons is a variation on the Green's poison and their fire breath a mystic adaptation to distance themselves from their cousins. These comparisons are the one area of conversation Brass dragons don't like to entertain.

[Spore]

White and Silver Dragons don't expel cold, they suck in heat.

Temperature movement (aka heating and chilling) is a purely semantic thing. You move energetic particles somewhere else. I know physics and D&D mix VERY BADLY, but I am not even sure D&D seasons are linked to the planetary cycle around its central star but rather just fights between divine portfolios. Take Chauntea and Auril from Faerun; summer and winter seems just like an eternal struggle between the two.

[Luccan]

Temperature movement (aka heating and chilling) is a purely semantic thing. You move energetic particles somewhere else. I know physics and D&D mix VERY BADLY, but I am not even sure D&D seasons are linked to the planetary cycle around its central star but rather just fights between divine portfolios. Take Chauntea and Auril from Faerun; summer and winter seems just like an eternal struggle between the two.

I'm just fond of the sensory description of it and it's a cool way to make a couple dragons feel distinct. I also like to imagine that's part of how they keep themselves warm in their environments. It's not a hardcore scientific explanation, it's a bending of physics everyone might be familiar with for flavor purposes. These are giant winged lizards we're talking about, I'm not gonna pretend it explains how their breath weapons would be possible in reality when I can't explain most other parts of their existence.

[PairO'Dice Lost]

Though I personally reject the headcanon (or even canon) that all D&D planes are somewhat connected. Especially the weird idea of Elminster having a wizarding pupil from Earth. One can make such connection but should veil their transitions in mist, because interplanar stuff quickly becomes a pissing contest between extremes, where planes just become planets of hats rather than fully fledged worlds each of their own.

I assume by "planes" here you mean "Material Plane worlds" given the mention of Elminster and Earth? If so, it's kind of hard to avoid Oerth and Toril having been connected to a bunch of worlds because in the former case there are crashed spaceships and portals to Earth and suchlike in various adventures and in the latter case the elves came from their own world, the Mulhorandi and Untheric pantheons explicitly came from Earth, and so forth in the setting background, but there's nothing saying that those worlds are still connected to lots of worlds in the modern era, so you can avoid that coming up without ignoring canon at all.

If you really do mean planes, you can't really change the fact that at least the Prime is connected to basically every other plane without breaking lots of things (ghosts, xill, and other Ethereal critters; basically all of Conjuration; mortal-deity connections, both in life and in the afterlife; and much more), but the planes often have a planet of hats feel because the devs only hit the high points in books like MotP due to limited space and to let adventures throw in lots of out-of-the-way adventure sites. The best way to avoid the issue is probably to involve more planar travel to flesh out the planes, just like FR can feel very same-y if you just stick to the Sword Coast and heading to the Lake of Steam, the Moonshaes, Rashemen, and other less-explored places can help counteract that.


Temperature movement (aka heating and chilling) is a purely semantic thing. You move energetic particles somewhere else. I know physics and D&D mix VERY BADLY, but I am not even sure D&D seasons are linked to the planetary cycle around its central star but rather just fights between divine portfolios. Take Chauntea and Auril from Faerun; summer and winter seems just like an eternal struggle between the two.

One can't really talk about "D&D seasons" given that every Prime world has its own local physics. Some planetary systems are geocentric, some are heliocentric; some have one sun, some have many; some have a big ball of fire as the sun, some have a vortex to the Plane of Fire or Plane of Radiance; some have a world with an axial tilt to create seasons, some have a sun that grows hotter and colder in a certain pattern.

In general, though, the Prime and the Inner Planes run more on physics while the Outer and some Transitive Planes run more on metaphysics. Summer and winter arising from a conflict between various gods is something you'd see on the Outer Planes, and while Chauntea gaining power relative to Auril might have some knock-on effects on Toril regarding the harshness of winters, it's not like Chauntea falling into a coma would lead to eternal winter or stabbing Lathander in the face would cause the sun to go out (not least because Realmspace has at least 6 other current gods of the sun and at least 2 dead gods of the sun, so you'd have to do lots of divine face-stabbing to put out the sun, but still).



I'm just fond of the sensory description of it and it's a cool way to make a couple dragons feel distinct. I also like to imagine that's part of how they keep themselves warm in their environments. It's not a hardcore scientific explanation, it's a bending of physics everyone might be familiar with for flavor purposes.

Personally, I headcanon that cold-breathing dragons (and other non-elemental creatures with cold breath/gaze/etc. abilities) are literally "cold blooded" in the sense that their metabolisms basically run backwards and they have "body cold" instead of "body heat" and so on. After all, cold in D&D isn't merely an absence of heat but an actual opposing force/substance to fire, with its own Inner Plane and everything, so it makes sense that some critters would have a cold-based biology to better fit their environment.

[Bohandas]

I know physics and D&D mix VERY BADLY, but I am not even sure D&D seasons are linked to the planetary cycle around its central star but rather just fights between divine portfolios. Take Chauntea and Auril from Faerun; summer and winter seems just like an eternal struggle between the two.

I'm not sure there's any primary campaign worlds that have the kind of unpredictable Game of Thrones style seasons that that would imply

[Clistenes]

I wonder if some halflings dislike that name, as they feel it derives from a medium-centric perspective. Some could even as a joke start calling humans doublings or something, while others wonder why gnomes don't receive a similar treatment or something lol

But looking at the real world, I think we can see plenty of examples of naming that isn't really the most accurate and just stuck around cause people got used to it. Ultimately a lot of people don't really care about accuracy, and will just use what get's the information across. Iceland and Greenland are good examples of names that don't really give off the most accurate idea of the place they're trying to convey. I can only assume halflings could have just as well been the names for gnomes or goblins, and it being just a completely arbitrary name that just stuck, maybe at one point the term could have been inclusive of all small races and then it just became exclusive to one as language changed

In the manga Dungeon Meshi "human" is the common name for real world humans, elves, dwarves, gnomes and halflings, all of which are considered subspecies of the humans species. All of these races can interbreed, but they haven't merged into a single unified race because mixbloods are sterile (that, and differences in lifespan make relationships painful, so most people avoids them...).

Normal humans are called "Tallmen" because they have the greatest average height.

It seems Elves were the ones who gave the other races their names, hence Elves have their own name, that doesn't mean anything in particular, while real world humans are called Tallmen because they are taller than Elves, Dwarves are called so because they are shorter than Elves, and Halflings are called "Half-foot" probably because they are half a foot shorter than Dwarves.

"Gnome" means "Wise One"... I guess Elves respected them (Gnomes are second only to Elves in magical skill and knowledge, and it seems they worked together in many projects in the distant past...).

When a group of foreigners explains that in their country only Tallmen are considered true humans, the listener is shocked...

Halflings are called "Half-foot" because the author didn't want to get into legal trouble and avoided using any race, species or monster that had an origin in D&D or fantasy rather than in real world mythology (hence Cockatrices and Griffons are okay, but Beholders and Mindflayers aren't...).

[Bohandas]

I think dragons may be a bit like bees or ants and that may be why they can breed with everything. Half-dragons fill the roles of sterile workers (even though they're not necessarily sterile, half-dragons don't exactly produce more proper dragons)

[Wizard_Lizard]

Clerics of Bane have their ritual that they do it in the dark as per I was born in the darkness!

[Blackdrop]

Any "curses" that dark elves supposedly suffer at the hands of the other gods, are actually part and parcel of any blessings Lloth bestows on her favored disciples as a means of control and isolation. Much easier to keep the dark elves compliant and worshipping her if they think Correlon/Pelor/etc is out to get them.

[calam]

Other humanoid breeding combinations not covered by races still happen but they don't breed into special mixed races. While human orc hybrids are half orcs orc halfling hybrids either come out full orc or full halfling, possibly with minor aesthetic differences like a halfing with greenish skin or a shorter orc.

Another headcanon is that objects with continual flame is the pottery shards of dungeon crawling, every ancient tomb, lost city and ancient castle is lousy with marbles and burnt out ioun stones that glow. Nearby towns are lit up like New York because of this.

[Beleriphon]

I think Bowie is a goblin in a context outside of the taxonomic context for the word 'goblin' in D&D. I think he's a generalized boogeymanoid being.

However I would support hobgoblins looking exactly like Bowie, Dafoe, or like Creedence Leonore Geigud from Troll 2. I guess hobgoblins look like humans wearing a lot of makeup.

The art already makes them look that way. They really have the alien of the week from Star Trek, or regular guest star Jeffy Coombs.

There's a new one. Hobgoblins all look like some version of Jeffery Coombs.

[Stattick]

Just sayin, Jeffery Coombs should play Green Goblin.

[Luccan]

Hmm, you know, I wouldn't consider this a headcanon, but I had thought years ago that it would be fun for the different D&D races to be the "evolved" versions of different animal groups. For our purposes, humans would be the "advanced ape" and I kind of imagined elves being evolved from some relative of rabbits. Orcs would go back to their snouty Ganon-like appearance as boarfolk. But I was just thinking that WotC gives hobgoblins an ever so slightly feline look, so if I ever do anything with this quarter-baked idea, I think I have my big cat people. This would be a setting without things like half-elves, of course.

[NovenFromTheSun]

The obyrith are the byproduct of a group of beings who tried to separate themselves from their inner evil. The Shard of Ultimate Evil has a similar effect in the current multiverse: it absorbs a little Evil from everywhere and projects it into the Lower Planes. This means that most people outside those planes are slightly more Good than they’d be otherwise, but at the cost of the Lower Planes growing at such a rate that only the Blood War is keeping them in check.

(Might be doing a bit of edition stream crossing here.)

[PairO'Dice Lost]

Hmm, you know, I wouldn't consider this a headcanon, but I had thought years ago that it would be fun for the different D&D races to be the "evolved" versions of different animal groups. For our purposes, humans would be the "advanced ape" and I kind of imagined elves being evolved from some relative of rabbits. Orcs would go back to their snouty Ganon-like appearance as boarfolk. But I was just thinking that WotC gives hobgoblins an ever so slightly feline look, so if I ever do anything with this quarter-baked idea, I think I have my big cat people. This would be a setting without things like half-elves, of course.

I did this in a previous campaign, but didn't restrict myself to mammalian ancestors:
Elves evolved from sharks, since they have incredibly long lifespan with few signs of aging, little to no body hair, exceptional senses, exceptional skill with blades, reputations as ambush predators and skirmishers over stand-up warriors, aquatic versions that look identical to the land-bound versions as if they'd remained unchanged for eons, etc. They ended up bald with grayish skin and unsettlingly wide grins, and had a penchant for sushi.
Dwarves evolved from sapient fungi, since they're squat and top-heavy, live underground in concentrated colonies, can survive without access to natural light, feed on fermented and decaying grains with every meal, etc. Their "beards" were actually mycelia (the vegetative tendrils that a fungus absorbs nutrients with), hence why dwarves always seem to spill lots of alcohol on their beards when drinking.
Goblinoids evolved from dogs and wolves, since they come in large families, love to burrow, have keen senses, rule their lessers through strength and dominance challenges*, have a special bond with canines already, and come in many widely varying breeds from "small and yappy" to "large and scary" while still being the same critter overall. They ended up a lot furrier and more excitable, and with exceptionally large and soulful eyes.
Gnomes evolved from foxes, since they are inquisitive and elusive, are smaller than the rest, also love to burrow, have good noses, and are viewed as either adorable scamps or irritating pests depending on what they've gotten up to most recently. They ended up having unusually large ears, uniformly red or orange (or rarely white) hair, and a very loud and cheeky laugh.
Meanwhile, halflings evolved from monkeys just like humans evolved from apes, and orcs evolved from boars per their original appearance.

Aside from a few cosmetic details I really didn't have to change much for any of the races since they fit so well already, and it gave me a good jumping-off point when playing around with their cultures and gods and so forth.

* Yes, I know the whole "alpha wolf" thing is only the case for wolves in captivity and the original study that came from was retracted by the author, but it's a fantasy staple for werewolves and other canid races now, so it works.

[Spore]

You do realize about half of your creation myth is straight from Golarion, if you squint a bit. Goblins there are basically just bipedal demonic dogs. Gnomes are not foxes, but the next best mythical thing, fey creatures. Elves are aliens (that started on Golarion but came back), dwarves were forged by a god. Your orcs are spot-on as well, with them being proto-humanoids at the start of recorded history.

[Asmotherion]

-Metalic Dragons are essentially the same species as their Chromatic counterparts. They just mutate depending on the Alignmental Energy they channel. A good Red Dragon will eventually turn into a Gold Dragon, and an Evil Bronze will turn Blue.

[PairO'Dice Lost]

You do realize about half of your creation myth is straight from Golarion, if you squint a bit. Goblins there are basically just bipedal demonic dogs. Gnomes are not foxes, but the next best mythical thing, fey creatures. Elves are aliens (that started on Golarion but came back), dwarves were forged by a god. Your orcs are spot-on as well, with them being proto-humanoids at the start of recorded history.

Technically, half of Golarion's creation myth would be straight from my setting, because I did my setting workup back in 2006ish before Golarion was a thing. :smallwink: On the Campaign Builder's Guild, if anyone remembers that site before they migrated and lost all the old material. Ah, the good ol' days for homebrew.

But in general, the "different races have very different origins instead of being humans in different hats" thing isn't all that novel. Elves, dwarves, and gnomes being somehow special (in-game because they have their own racial pantheons doing their own thing, out of game because they have more of a fantasy pedigree than halflings and PC-side orcs and goblins and such) has been done for a while, and in fact "elves come from a different planet" was done in Forgotten Realms and "dwarves were forged by a god" was done in Dragonlance long before most spinoff or homebrew settings existed. Meanwhile, the "different evolutionary line" explanation came up a lot when orcs and kobolds looked more obviously pig-like and dog-like, respectively, and lots of the early monstrous humanoids were basically half-animal people (lizardfolk and hyena-people [gnolls] and fish-people and so forth), and one of the reason OSR products are full of frog people and snake people is because they're going for the same "humanoid monsters are more primordial/prototypical creatures than the modern races" angle.

What would be novel is headcanonizing an explicit origin for humans that doesn't just put them as the "mix of all the other races"/"collaboration between gods" race, since everyone likes to play around with the various demihumans but nearly always leave humans alone.

EDIT: Actually, along those lines...


-Metalic Dragons are essentially the same species as their Chromatic counterparts. They just mutate depending on the Alignmental Energy they channel. A good Red Dragon will eventually turn into a Gold Dragon, and an Evil Bronze will turn Blue.

So, humans and dragons both have four interesting things in common:

1) They can breed with basically anything. Part-human planetouched are everywhere (compared to part-other-race planetouched, which are more rare and only come in specific combinations) and near-humans like rilkan and illumians are plentiful, and half-[elves/orcs/dwarves/etc.] are a thing while e.g. orc/dwarves and gnome/elves aren't. Half-dragon and draconic creatures are everywhere, and there are even true-breeding part-dragon offshoots like chimerae and dragon turtles.

2) They come in different colors. Dragons obviously have their very colorful metallic, chromatic, and gem dragon families plus a bunch of one-offs (shadow dragons, planar dragons, etc.) in a rainbow of colors, but humans are also pretty colorful in that they're nearly always the only race in a setting to come in a wide variety of skin tones for a single race; even elves tend to only come in pale/brown/black for high/wood/drow elves, with any other subraces fitting in those general categories.

3) They're disruptive to the status quo. Most settings have some backstory element along the lines of "elves and dwarves and giants and other really old and really-long lived races were chilling for a few thousand years, and then bam, humans came along and in less than a few centuries they're everywhere and running everything," and out of all the monsters out there, dragons are the most likely to just swoop in out of nowhere, burn down a few towns, and take over the area.

4) They're highly changeable and adaptable. All metallic and several other kinds of dragons have some sort of innate shapechanging capability, and all true dragons have distinct age categories that grant them different capabilities over time, while humans are generally the most adaptable PCs (in AD&D they could dual-class instead of multiclass and had no class or level restrictions, in 3e and later they have generalist ability score boosts and fewer or no multiclassing restrictions)

What other race can breed with anything, comes in a bunch of colors, disrupt everything they come in contact with, and are known for their mutations?

Slaad.

Positing that, like slaad, humans and dragons are creatures of innate chaos would put an interesting twist on a setting. It explains why humans burst onto the scene and took charge from the other humanoid races after they'd been chugging along in an orderly fashion for millennia, why it's always the humans that are setting up crazy-powerful empires that are constantly rising and falling and having major side effects on the setting, why (in earlier editions) humans work so differently from the other races mechanically and flavor-wise, and so on.

It would also give you a good opportunity to flip the usual implicit "Law is better than Chaos" assumption a bunch of people have. Make Paladins of Freedom the default paladin and all the good theocracies CG instead of LG! Toss the Law-leaning monarchies and empires with their feudalism and massive armies and such and fill the continent with Chaos-leaning city-states and federations with bands of [s]adventurers privateers instead of standing armies! Paint the archons and devils as the truly alien and inscrutable beings that they are and paint the eladrin and demons as having more relatable and human-like motivations! Instead of emphasizing the Chaotic-ish weirdness and uniqueness of aberrations, emphasize the unnatural Lawfulness of illithid/elder brain hive minds and thrall-keeping aboleths and beholders!

And sure, there are lawful dragons and humans and they appear to average out to neutrality on a race-wide level, but everyone knows they're really all a bit chaotic where it counts. Even the naturally-Chaotic slaad churn out naturally-Lawful gormeels every so often. :smallamused:

[PhoenixPhyre]

What would be novel is headcanonizing an explicit origin for humans that doesn't just put them as the "mix of all the other races"/"collaboration between gods" race, since everyone likes to play around with the various demihumans but nearly always leave humans alone.


Would "artificially created out of hobgoblins via magical genetic engineering" (along with orcs, just by different sets of elves) count? Because that's how my setting handles humans. And since hobgoblins are temporary forced-mutations of goblins (when a tribe has excess group psychic energy, they pump it into a member and create a hobgoblin, and the process is reversible), that makes humans technically descended from goblins.

Heck, none of the gods even existed as such until well after most of the current races were in place and in general had little or nothing to do with creating races.

[PairO'Dice Lost]

Would "artificially created out of hobgoblins via magical genetic engineering" (along with orcs, just by different sets of elves) count? Because that's how my setting handles humans. And since hobgoblins are temporary forced-mutations of goblins (when a tribe has excess group psychic energy, they pump it into a member and create a hobgoblin, and the process is reversible), that makes humans technically descended from goblins.

I've seen both "humans are magically-/alchemically-/genetically-modified X" and "goblinoids are all one race that Pokévolve into different forms with time/combat experience/environmental pressures/etc." several times before, and of course the collective-tribal-psychic-energy thing sounds a bit like 40K orks, but all three things together with the reversibility is definitely a novel combination with a lot of plot hook potential.

[PhoenixPhyre]

I've seen both "humans are magically-/alchemically-/genetically-modified X" and "goblinoids are all one race that Pokévolve into different forms with time/combat experience/environmental pressures/etc." several times before, and of course the collective-tribal-psychic-energy thing sounds a bit like 40K orks, but all three things together with the reversibility is definitely a novel combination with a lot of plot hook potential.

Oh, and I forgot to mention that goblins have a form of unconsious collective memory within a tribe. In fact, a tribeless goblin is basically a human intellect cat, except without more than the most basic object permanence. So tribes kinda work as swarms and individualized thought is doable but not natural.

[Spore]

It would also give you a good opportunity to flip the usual implicit "Law is better than Chaos" assumption a bunch of people have. Make Paladins of Freedom the default paladin and all the good theocracies CG instead of LG!

I have always felt CN is the most natural of all alignments, if any D&D universe has any semblance to increase entropy automatically, and have order or decrease in entropy be a man-made thing (or in some case, extraplanar robot thing). In a followup to that logic, LG and LE are the two most unnatural alignments. CE is just nature run rampant and selfish (and I do enjoy the idea of demons just being smart beasts of primal sin), so in my headcanon CG is not the default paladin, but NG would be.

[PairO'Dice Lost]

I have always felt CN is the most natural of all alignments, if any D&D universe has any semblance to increase entropy automatically, and have order or decrease in entropy be a man-made thing (or in some case, extraplanar robot thing). In a followup to that logic, LG and LE are the two most unnatural alignments. CE is just nature run rampant and selfish (and I do enjoy the idea of demons just being smart beasts of primal sin), so in my headcanon CG is not the default paladin, but NG would be.

Well, at least for all the settings that are part of the Great Wheel, Law is the more natural/default force than Chaos (in-game because Law won the War of Law and Chaos and got to set up the multiverse as it wanted, out-of-game because a lot of early writers equated Law with Good and Chaos with Evil), hence why the Chaotic planes are shoved into the same ordered framework as the Lawful ones, slaad and demons and such have the same neatly categorized sets of forms that modrons and devils and such do, and so forth...and as I pointed out in a post a few pages back, the concept of "entropy" doesn't really exist in the Wheel in the same sense as it does in the real world. So Chaos = natural and Law = unnatural doesn't quite work.

But for a homebrew world using a variant cosmology, or for a campaign that takes the basic Wheel setup and drops the AD&D/Planescape lore? Yeah, making Chaos the "natural" alignment instead of True Neutral would be a nice twist on things, and would work nicely for a campaign with a "magic vs. technology" or "good wilderness vs. bad industrialization" theme. It even almost works with the Wheel as-is, with CG being fairly nature-y (eladrin are animalistic, the Court of Stars are elflike, and Elysium, the Beastlands, Arborea are a pastoral paradise, full of animals, and exaggerated natural terrain, respectively) and the Abyss having a bunch of nature-themed layers (spiders in the Demonweb Pits, snakes in Smargard, the Brine Flats, etc.).

It's more "reflavoring" than "headcanon," granted, but here's a quick stab at how you could make some minor tweaks to the Outer Planes to whip up an alternate Great Wheel emphasizing the "nature vs. artificiality" theme. On the Chaos side:
Elysium: Removed as the NG plane, though one could add an "Elysium" back as a new layer of Arborea.
Beastlands, Arborea: No change.
Ysgard: Its name becomes Vanaheim, and rather than focusing on humanoid warriors fighting each other, it's about all sorts of living beings hunting one another, in a "nature red in tooth and claw" kind of way.
Limbo: Its title changes from "Ever-Changing Chaos of Limbo" to "Primordial Ooze of Limbo," the morphic traits lineup goes from a purely elemental air/earth/fire/water to a more swamp-y wood/earth/storm/water, and the slaad take on all sorts of reptilian and amphibious forms, not just froglike ones.
Pandemonium: Drop the insanity-inducing wind and focus on the fact that it's a maze of endless tunnels, the Underdark writ large.
Abyss: Remove or change any layers that aren't obviously themed around "nature gone bad."
Carceri: Its name becomes Faerie, and it changes from "six prison planets you physically can't leave" to "six faerie courts that the rulers don't want to let you leave," which works nicely because the bog/jungle/desert environments of the first three layers and barren mountains/cold ocean/ice environments of the last three layers already fit into a classic Summer/Winter setup.
Hades: Removed as the NE plane, though one could add it back as a new middle layer of Faerie to provide a gradient between Summer desert and Winter mountains.
And on the Law side:
Bytopia: Make Dothion more urban and Shurrock as settled as Dothion is now, so the layer dichotomy goes from "settled half vs. wild half" to "place for people who like to live where it's settled vs. people who want to go out and do the settling."
Celestia: Its title changes from "Seven Mounting Heavens of Celestia" to "Sevenfold Citadel of Celestia," and Celestia itself changes from a mountain to a tower--specifically a fortress-monastery of sorts--with the Silver Sea becoming a Silver Moat.
Arcadia, Mechanus, Acheron: No changes.
Baator: Add cities or fortresses to Stygia and Malbolge to complete the "diabolical city/fortress surrounded by a Captain Planet villain's dream environment" theme.
Gehenna: The volcanoes belching lava are now strip-mined mountaintops belching smog.

[Bohandas]

The Kalashtar are habitually late, habitually forget to get dressed, and various other dream cliches

[Starlit Dragon]

The Kalashtar are habitually late, habitually forget to get dressed, and various other dream cliches

Do their teeth fall out?

[LibraryOgre]

Do their teeth fall out?

Yes, but they're back in the next scene, without explanation.

[Bohandas]

Do their teeth fall out?

I'm thinking yeah, but that they regrow them like sharks

[Bohandas]

The main causes of death for trolls are stomach diseases and cancer, both of which are unimpeded by the trolls' regeneration

[Spore]

The main causes of death for trolls are stomach diseases and cancer, both of which are unimpeded by the trolls' regeneration

If troll regeneration is just rapid cell growth, cancer is the leading cause in troll deaths.

[Xuc Xac]

If troll regeneration is just rapid cell growth, cancer is the leading cause in troll deaths.

Considering how quickly trolls grow bodily tissue, any troll that gets cancer turns into a huge mass of tumors and dies in a matter of hours.

[LibraryOgre]

Considering how quickly trolls grow bodily tissue, any troll that gets cancer turns into a huge mass of tumors and dies in a matter of hours.

Or becomes something else...

[Spriteless]

Considering how quickly trolls grow bodily tissue, any troll that gets cancer turns into a huge mass of tumors and dies in a matter of hours.

But what if their cancers get cancer (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1AElONvi9WQ)?

[PhoenixPhyre]

My setting has trolls that don't have a natural age limit. At least...unless they've ever been injured. Because their regeneration means that for every time they have to heal, a little more grows than should. So trolls get progressively more and more knobbly and distorted each time they regenerate, until they suffocate under the weight of their regrown flesh. And since this regeneration takes energy, trolls are always hungry. Which makes them get injured trying to acquire food (usually from something that'd rather not be eaten)...

[Bohandas]

But what if their cancers get cancer (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1AElONvi9WQ)?

Have you ever seen the Sealab episode about whale cancer?

[No brains]

What if trolls don't get cancer because they are cancer?

It's at least true on the internet.

[KillianHawkeye]

I think when a troll gets cancer, it should grow out of control until it becomes the monster from Akira.

[Stattick]

OMG, I just realized that Deadpool is a troll.

[Beleriphon]

OMG, I just realized that Deadpool is a troll.

He is in every sense of the word.

[thorr-kan]

He is in every sense of the word.
Not every; he does not live Below the Bridge.

[Wizard_Lizard]

The entire elven race is being manipulated by mind flayers, and drow were a mind flayer experiment. The elven gods are secretly a cabal of mind flayers.
alternatively all subraces are the cause of mindflayer manipulation!

[Notafish]

The axes of draconic alignment are not good/evil and order/chaos. Draconic alignment fluctuates between sated/hungry and asleep/awake.

Scale color and resistances are sympathetic reactions to their environment, not species-level traits. A dragon with a volcanic lair that moves to an arctic ice cavern will change from red to white the next time she molts (which could be months or years; the specifics of draconic lifecycles are still poorly understood, and individual dragons have some degree of conscious control over the process).

[KillianHawkeye]

The axes of draconic alignment are not good/evil and order/chaos. Draconic alignment fluctuates between sated/hungry and asleep/awake.

I know the underlined word is correct, but when I started reading this I imagined literal axes and had a brief moment of confusion. :smallconfused:

I might me a little tired, LOL.

[LibraryOgre]

The axes of draconic alignment are not good/evil and order/chaos. Draconic alignment fluctuates between sated/hungry and asleep/awake.



I know the underlined word is correct, but when I started reading this I imagined literal axes and had a brief moment of confusion. :smallconfused:

I might me a little tired, LOL.

If we knew how hungry you were, we could guess your alignment! :smallbiggrin:

[Wizard_Lizard]

If we knew how hungry you were, we could guess your alignment! :smallbiggrin:

I think that if we're guessing alignment from tiredness and hungriness.... I am probably somewhere south-east of neutral.

[Forevaxp]

Sammaster is a distant relative to the members of the Wyvernspur family to explain why Flattery Wyvernspur (a clone of Finder) looks almost identical to him.

[Vknight]

Not a head canon but my own setting Humans are interesting.

Since all gods were once mortals in setting. The setting implies evolution as some of the dragon gods remember proto-humans and talk about how the divergence between humans and the elves was caused when they settled the fey and the material with the elves then offshooting repeatedly post that into the various types.
The head of the dwarven pantheon it is assumed was well a dwarf who magically granted his descendants the same special abilities he had leading to the divergence of dwarves.
Well the head of the orc pantheon took a collection of humans and dwarves who would become the orcs.
Halflings are a modern off shoot of humans. Goblins are a similar offshoot but to orcs. Gnomes are a similar offshoot but to elves.
Tritons are early humans who adapted to the plane of water without infusing elemental energy. With the sea elves being a interbreeding of them and elves.
Centaurs are assumed to be a mage who granted a nomad clans wish to forever be apart of their horses. And would develop into the culture you later see, along with some druids messing around leading to off-shots like elven centaurs who would eventually develop deer traits.
Minotaurs are implied to be the sons of the first centaur god after he shagged a herd of cows. Others say the first minotaur shagged a group of horses and made centaurs. Because the two are one deity.
Kitsune are the descendants of humans and folk spirits becoming their own distinct lineage both fox spirit and not.
Catfolk no one knows some guess they were a mages attempt to prove evolution with cats. But that would raise the question then why do dog folk have a deity but cats don't. Or why the rabbit and otter folk both also don't have a god.
Merfolk are suspected to be tritons and/or sea elves who modified themselves or magically conceived with sea life

[Bohandas]

Industrization, assembly lines, etc. are among the forbidden secrets that turn you into an allip.

[Silly Name]

Goblins were created by hobgoblins by starting with kobolds and using magic and breeding programs to make them what they wanted, meaning the goblin race has a distant draconic ancestry.

in 4e lore, He Who Was (god of good and peace and rumored creator of humanity, slain by Asmodeus) is Rao from Greyhawk. This is actually true in a setting of mine whose mythology is mish-mash of 4e, Greyhawk lore and some of my players' input.

[KorvinStarmast]

Like mules, half-elves and half-orcs are sterile and cannot reproduce (without the aid of fertility magic). That's canon in my world.

I run kobolds as the old-school vaguely canine humanoids, not this new-fangled mini-draconian nonsense, so the notion that they're dragon-kin is absurd on the face of it. Likewise.

Hags are female ogres.

Both are grotesque versions of humans that capture and eat people. Males display strength and physical violence, and females use lies and deception. *clap* Keeping this.

Humans tend to win races. Because of their bonus feet. must not *groan*

Troglodytes are corrupted lizardfolk. They come from eggs stolen by sahuagin, and the most dangerous and organized troglodytes are the sharkfolk's main weapon in hilly terrain. Hmm, might steal this.

So, more of a circle surrounding True Neutral, rather than the traditional grid Yep.

In fact, didn't OD&D only have 5 alignments? Nope. Law, Neutrality, Chaos.

"Halfling pipe-weed" is marijuana. The reason halflings eat so much despite being Small and typically sedentary is that they all have the munchies all the time.

(Also halflings are hobbits, not kender.) Now canon in my worlds (the munchies bit; kender are dead to me, and the pipe weed reference goes back to Bored With The Rings. :smallsmile:

Elves behave like over the top stereotypes of west coast americans who flit between different melodramatic causes, questionable fad diets, and bizarre art trends on a bi-weekly basis While funny, the elves in my worlds are a bit more taciturn, aloof, and serious than that. For a more beer and pretzels game, that's a great framework.

Half-dwarves don't exist since dwarves did not take part in this disgusting interracial breeding program. We had a succubus recently in the game world where I DM who conned two NPC acolytes of life deity into trying to create a half dwarf/half human breed. Incubus/succubus showed up (disguised) in the form of a dwarf who was quite randy and who impregnated them with ... demon-seed. (Interesting to see how the party sorted that out ...)
Halfling burgers are a thing. Most bulettes agree with this. :smallcool:

Demons are responsible for the worst crimes of the multiverse. The Abyss is their divine prison, and the devils are their jailers. The Blood War is simply quelling a jailbreak. Yugoloths play both sides as the god that made them was infamously one who double crossed people and played both sides in the divine conflict. Keeping this, thanks.

Ioun, patron goddess of librarians (and of magic if you’re like me and use the Dawn War pantheon as your go-to), is an ascended mortal;
Ioun stones, from Vance's Dying earth stories, are forever (for me) tied to Vance's story. Yours is an interesting take, thank you for that. :smallsmile:

An elf over a century old starts adventuring at 1st level because they haven't learned much that's useful for an adventurer. They spent decades making shoes, singing songs, and enjoying leisurely three-hour liquid lunches with their friends. Adventuring is their retirement hobby. Bravo, well done. I've played with a few people who take that approach for their elves.

Exactly. D&D as post-apocalyptic fiction has always made the most sense to me. The original game had a heavy post apocalyptic, post 'fallen empire' feel to it. Also, Chaos was relentless (entropy, decay, degradation) and Law had to fight just to keep the status quo.

Honestly, D&Dland probably isn't so much in Medieval Status as locked into a cycle of repeating apocalypses. Yes, rise and fall of kingdom/empire/civilization you name it.
That's literally what happened in the real world. Chinese alchemists tried to make a potion of longevity and ended up making gunpowder by accident instead. They used it to make rockets and guns. Viagra, the original version. :smallcool:

That's because you're taking a very narrow view of alignment. It's ALWAYS been true that alignment is not an absolute barometer of action nor affiliation. Rust never sleeps (chaos) and it's easier to tear things down than to build them (Law). Fundamental tension in the Law/N/Chaos system. "good and evil" is just name calling. :smallyuk:

OD&D - Early Dark Ages
Correct that to "early dark ages through crusading era" and I think you nailed it. I agree with the rest of your theme, I think it fits really well. Nicely done.

It just occurred to me that the reason why low level adventures haven't already been solved by higher level heroes is because high level heroes teleport everywhere and are never in the small out of the way villages that low level adventures happen in And they charge higher fees that villages and small manors can't afford.

The DM I play with on Skype is like that: he pronounces "drow" like "crow." That's how we pronounced it when we first encountered one in a Giants module ... a long time ago. Those who pronounce it to rhyme with 'how" confuse me. :smallconfused:

Bouncing off the idea the magic (‘the weave’) is generated by the friction between planes:

Each plane is ‘infinite’ in some way by necessity, acting as a sink to combat overflow.

Mortals like to blame gods for cataclysmic events but in many instances they are as much victims as the mortals are. Planar ‘earthquakes’ cause all sorts of chaos and more often than not the highly magically inclined are more severely affected by any disruptions. Which reminds me I should probably come up with some magic counterpart to tectonic verbiage. So stealing this. :smallsmile:

I always went with bew-let, like Ferris Bueller. When the original MM came out in 1977, we arrived at "boo-lette" with accent on the second syllable. Not sure why we did that. I can see how other pronunciations were grown. Also, Landshark was an SNL skit. :smallyuk: (Chevy Chase era, as I recall).

As to giants and dwarves: And it works, lore wise, as well as any lore I've ever run across regarding giants. Like it.

Just imagine being one of the people with an early prototype tattoo. "Good news, it works. Bad news, sometimes it wild surges." Premature evoculation? :smalleek:

That if there is a material, someone has made a golem of it.
Cheese golems I am looking at you. Horace Wallace and Gromit have probably beaten us to the punch on that one. :smallfrown:

The word halfling is comes from a mistranslation that attempted to describe them as pastoral farmers.
The intended message was, "We are people of the pitchfork."
It came out as, "Our people are 'hay-flings'.":smalltongue: Groan in progress, and consider that stolen. :smallbiggrin:

My head canon as regards magic, wizards, artificers, dragons and deities.

a. Dragons are the originators of magic in The World.
b. The original language of magic is Draconic (the elder version, like Linear B's (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Linear_B)relationship to Ancient Greek if you like)
c. Wizards (particularly human wizards) are upstarts, who often meddle with forces they barely understand, which predictably causes cataclysms. (The Greyhawk Rain of Colorless Fire that caused the Sea of Dust as but one example = various other game worlds have their examples ... Athas, Faerun, Krynn, and so on)
Dragons have, over the years, engaged in efforts to stamp that out. Periodically, various dragon clans ally with the intent of tracking down and eliminating wizards. They often use human/humanoid/demi human agents to effect this policy. With that being a fact, the study and predominance of magic in the world ebbs and flows but it is almost always underground.

d. Artificers are an ofshoot of Magic Users/Wizards. The greatest artificer in the history of the world, Dav Inji, created the Rod of Seven Parts. (Artifact of immense power). That rod, whose initial purpose is lost in the mists of time, led to a variety of conflicts for possession of it. Kingdoms rose and fell as a result, and war seemed to be always looming or in progress. Eventually artificers were viewed as the root cause of conflict.

e. In a witch hunt to end all witch hunts, artificers were hunted down and systematically executed over most of the world.
They discovered that you can run but you can't hide. Result? No artificers in the world. (Or darned few, and they have to keep their true craft hidden lest they become one of the hunted. Eberron is the one refuge in the multiverse where artificers can live without the ever present fear of yet another witch hunt). Now and again, various clerics of the 'crafty' deities tried their hands at making similar holy, or unholy, items, with mixed results. This was, and remains, an effort generally done behind closed doors to avoid attracting attention from those not within the circle of trust for that group ...

f. Demons, devils, celestials: manifestations of the stuff of their planes. Embodiments of spirit, just as elementals are embodiments of the elemental planes. A solar might be an embodiment of Truth, of Light, and so on.

g. There are no deities, per se, but there are forces and philosophies. The worship and reverence that life, light, water, honor, death, nature, harvest, etcetera attract often results in that aspect of existence attracting a name. (For example The Storm might be called Umberlee, or Thor, or what have you) and thus pantheons grow. From these forces and philosophies clerics and druids are occasionally blessed with divine powers ... but that doesn't always make them welcome nor popular.

h. Why and how do magical items still exist? Over the centuries and millenia, wizards and artificers alike (and to a lesser extent, clerics and druids) were busy little beavers who turned out all kinds of stuff. Elves, dwarves and gnomes did likewise but their stuff is rarely available outside of their 'circles of relationship' and clan or kin. Some of the things made over the years that have not been found and destroyed are still around, but finding them is both hard and dangerous - but their value is considerable, and that is why some folk (adventurers) now and again head off to find them.
Many die in the attempt.

Adventuring: some call it archeology, others call it grave robbing, some call it treasure hunting, others call it theft.

The adventurers frequently meet in a tavern ... :smallbiggrin:

[Bohandas]

That's how we pronounced it when we first encountered one in a Giants module ... a long time ago. Those who pronounce it to rhyme with 'how" confuse me. :smallconfused:

What if it was pronounced "Drew" :D

(and what if the Krynnish god Paladine was pronounced "Paula Deen")

[KorvinStarmast]

What if it was pronounced "Drew" :D We'd break out with a chorus of Cleveland Rocks whenever we arrived in Menzobaranzin ... (I never could spell that city's name without looking it up)

Reference? Drew Carey show

[Bohandas]

Rust never sleeps (chaos) and it's easier to tear things down than to build them (Law). Fundamental tension in the Law/N/Chaos system. "good and evil" is just name calling. :smallyuk:

On a related note, tying this into the tech discussion, Things can't be built up until the old things are torn down. Imagine how much of a mess we'd be in if anybody cared for the livelihood of the handloom weaver, the manual rail spiker, the whaler, or the guy who makes weapons and tools out of bronze.

I think the reason why D&D tends toward late medievak technology, and why multiple levels of technology often coexist wigin a single society, is because the D&D multiverse has an excess of order and stability.

[RedMage125]

Just came up with this in another message group online...

Humans are a hybrid species. Thousands of years ago, a civilization of elves and orcs co-existed.* Their hybrid children had much of the grace and creativity of elves, but had the tenacity, strength, and, most importantly, ability to breed insanely quickly of orcs. That is, of course, humans. The hybrid children adapted better and eventually, no true orcs or elves remained in that kingdom. Eventually, everyone forgot that they even WERE a hybrid species.**

Over thousands of years of evolution (or hey, it's fantasy, maybe the gods made the change), elves and orcs are no longer genetically compatible. But humans share genes with both of them, which is why half orc and half elf hybrids are still possible.

*as a bonus rider idea, perhaps the fall of this kingdom and the rise of humans as a species that supplanted both parent species is the real reason elves and orcs hate each other, but no one remembers anymore.

**also explains why there is no "creator deity" for humans. Orcs know Gruumsh made them. Elves have Corellon, Dwarves have Moradin. Humans do not have a deity who molded them. They rose to prominence through achievement. They were a product of the world itself, and carry the favor of Natural Selection. This is also why humans prefer deities that correlate to what they DO (a warrior prefers a war God, a scholar prefers a God of knowledge, a healer a God of medicine, etc). Humans value merit and achievement over some kind of "x deity made us and said we're perfect" mentality.

[NovenFromTheSun]

Because of Strahd being called the first vampire, I think that the world Barovia came from is older than most other prime material worlds, perhaps one of the first inhabited (by humans at least).

[RedMage125]

I just saw someone's head Canon online in a FB group, and wanted to share. DISCLAIMER: this is not my original idea.

Mimics reproduce by sometimes pretending to be a chest full of coins, and then let people take those coins...which are baby mimics.

[Stattick]

Humans are the default, in a mystical and alchemical sense. That's why humans have no creator. That's why humans can breed with more races than anything else. That's why something can be half human, but not half this and half that if one of those half isn't human.

You let orcs and elves mate - they produce humans. Elves and dwarves - more humans. Halflings and gnomes - humans. Tabaxi and dragonborn - humans. Centaurs and satyrs... well, not much chance of a pregnancy there, but if it it happens, then it'll produce humans. It's like when your computer's operating system fails to load, so you run DOS.

[Luccan]

Humans are the default, in a mystical and alchemical sense. That's why humans have no creator. That's why humans can breed with more races than anything else. That's why something can be half human, but not half this and half that if one of those half isn't human.

You let orcs and elves mate - they produce humans. Elves and dwarves - more humans. Halflings and gnomes - humans. Tabaxi and dragonborn - humans. Centaurs and satyrs... well, not much chance of a pregnancy there, but if it it happens, then it'll produce humans. It's like when your computer's operating system fails to load, so you run DOS.

Half-Dragons?

[KillianHawkeye]

Humans are the default, in a mystical and alchemical sense. That's why humans have no creator. That's why humans can breed with more races than anything else. That's why something can be half human, but not half this and half that if one of those half isn't human.

You let orcs and elves mate - they produce humans. Elves and dwarves - more humans. Halflings and gnomes - humans. Tabaxi and dragonborn - humans. Centaurs and satyrs... well, not much chance of a pregnancy there, but if it it happens, then it'll produce humans. It's like when your computer's operating system fails to load, so you run DOS.


Half-Dragons?

Clearly, dragons must be hyper-evolved humans from the future. :smallwink:

[KorvinStarmast]

Clearly, dragons must be hyper-evolved humans from the future. :smallwink:
Humans originally got their reptilian brain from dragons, right? :smallcool:

[Stattick]

Half-Dragons?

Honestly, I didn't even consider them. It's one of those things I tend to forget. I played 2nd edition, a little 4th (it wasn't my bag, so I didn't dig into the system at all), and now 5th.

[Spore]

So is human default "black" aka the absence of all essence, or is it "white" a combination of every available essence?

[KorvinStarmast]

So is human default "black" aka the absence of all essence, or is it "white" a combination of every available essence?
Human default essence is green ... soylent green. :smallbiggrin:

[thorr-kan]

Human default essence is green ... soylent green. :smallbiggrin:
Nononono!

Humans should be Forest Service Green https://encycolorpedia.com/639e7e, i.e. the "Green Not Found In Nature!"

[Luccan]

This isn't so much a head canon as an interesting quirk. IIRC the 3e DMG mentions Gnomes as the most likely race to form a republic. Remember this for your Rome-expy next time you're world-building.

If I were to head-canon this quirk, I would shuffle it less under their drive for experimentation (forming a republic just to see if it worked or because nobody else was doing it) and instead place it more in the realm of their love of tricks. The keenest political manipulators are often Gnomes and a republic allows them to put this form of trickery to work the most.

[stack]

This isn't so much a head canon as an interesting quirk. IIRC the 3e DMG mentions Gnomes as the most likely race to form a republic. Remember this for your Rome-expy next time you're world-building.

If I were to head-canon this quirk, I would shuffle it less under their drive for experimentation (forming a republic just to see if it worked or because nobody else was doing it) and instead place it more in the realm of their love of tricks. The keenest political manipulators are often Gnomes and a republic allows them to put this form of trickery to work the most.
The gnoman republic, leading to the mighty gnoman empire?

[Archpaladin Zousha]

I mean, it worked for Kingdoms of Amalur!

[Kane0]

The gnoman republic, leading to the mighty gnoman empire?

Did they famously defeat a rival state's defences by smuggling a bunch of legionnaires inside a gift wood golem?

[Sharur]

Did they famously defeat a rival state's defences by smuggling a bunch of legionnaires inside a gift wood golem?

If they are the Gnomian Republic/Empire, then they wouldn't have been the defeaters, but the defeated.

They learned the power of trickery first hand.

[Bohandas]

The reason werebears are LG is because rather than a generic bear they turn specifically into Winnie the Pooh :D

[Batcathat]

The reason werebears are LG is because rather than a generic bear they turn specifically into Winnie the Pooh :D

Winnie being a werebear would explain him wearing a shirt but no pants, I guess...

[hewhosaysfish]

Winnie being a werebear would explain him wearing a shirt but no pants, I guess...

In his human form he can wear a very baggy sweater and when the full moon comes out he expands to fit it.
But his pants can only be so baggy without falling down, so when he transforms he always bursts out of them. "Oh, bother."

[Batcathat]

In his human form he can wear a very baggy sweater and when the full moon comes out he expands to fit it.
But his pants can only be so baggy without falling down, so when he transforms he always bursts out of them. "Oh, bother."

Or maybe he and the Hulk had to share one set of shapeshifting clothes, explaining why the Hulk's pants stay on (in addition to keeping every man on the planet from feeling inadequate by comparison).

[KorvinStarmast]

Winnie the Hulk is what a Wear Bear is, yes? :smallsmile:

[Luccan]

Dwarves start to go gray fairly early for their long lifespans. Tradition dictates that a dwarf is still a young adult* until they start to get gray hairs in their beard. "Graybeard" is both a teasing jab for a dwarf past their prime and a term of respect for a dwarf's experience. "A head full of [color] hairs" is a term implying immaturity, inexperience, and/or ignorance.

*Equivalent 18-30, in this case.

Edit: On werebears, the reason they don't willfully spread their disease to everyone is because much like other lycanthropes are compelled to do evil things, a werebear is compelled to do good. If any area is relatively peaceful, a werebear is compelled to leave behind everything to go find somewhere that needs their help. They don't like making people abandon a stable life, friends, and family if the person does not fully understand what may happen

[vasilidor]

Dwarves start to go gray fairly early for their long lifespans. Tradition dictates that a dwarf is still a young adult* until they start to get gray hairs in their beard. "Graybeard" is both a teasing jab for a dwarf past their prime and a term of respect for a dwarf's experience. "A head full of [color] hairs" is a term implying immaturity, inexperience, and/or ignorance.

*Equivalent 18-30, in this case.

Edit: On werebears, the reason they don't willfully spread their disease to everyone is because much like other lycanthropes are compelled to do evil things, a werebear is compelled to do good. If any area is relatively peaceful, a werebear is compelled to leave behind everything to go find somewhere that needs their help. They don't like making people abandon a stable life, friends, and family if the person does not fully understand what may happen

By that same note, in an area overrun with evil they may feel compelled to turn others to fight against said evil. I am now imagining a roving band of werebear warriors that actively hunt evil and recruit as needed.

[ideasmith]

Any school of magic can be used to mimic any other school of magic, but mostly at such a low efficiency that it is only used to enhance the school's appropriate effects. That is why such spells as incendiary cloud can exist.


Incendiary-less Cloud
Conjuration (Creation) [Fire]
Level: Sorcerer/Wizard 8 (maybe a bit lower)
Components: V, S
Casting time: 1 standard action
Range: Medium (100 ft. + 10 ft./level)
Effect: Cloud spreads in 20-ft. radius, 20 ft. high
Duration: 1 round/level
Saving Throw: None
Spell Resistance: No

An incendiary-less cloud spell creates a cloud of roiling smoke. The smoke obscures all sight as a fog cloud does.

As with a cloudkill spell, the smoke moves away from you at 10 feet per round. Figure out the smoke’s new spread each round based on its new point of origin, which is 10 feet farther away from where you were when you cast the spell. By concentrating, you can make the cloud (actually its point of origin) move as much as 60 feet each round. Any portion of the cloud that would extend beyond your maximum range dissipates harmlessly, reducing the remainder’s spread thereafter.

As with fog cloud, wind disperses the smoke, and the spell can’t be cast underwater.

[Spore]

By that same note, in an area overrun with evil they may feel compelled to turn others to fight against said evil. I am now imagining a roving band of werebear warriors that actively hunt evil and recruit as needed.

Werebears are actually crafted after British were creature stories, where werewolves help out families in need, and werebears guide lost wanderers back to civilization. Werecreatures having a bad name comes from the German(ic) culture.

So I am imagining a fantasy smear campaign against werecreatures. Organizations like Eberron's Silver Flame send out hunters of the werecreatures, who largely are innocent. Of course a few enraged outliers exist, as do warring packs of were beasts that resist the human tyranny. But each "flavor" of werecreature deals with this fervor on their own.

Werewolves hunt humans. Werebears hide in caves, unless provoked. Wererats hide in sewers, often organized with crime rings for protecting each other. Wereraptors (anything flying) just build their nests in very high mountain peaks. As thus, I have the head-canon that werecreature "typical" alignment is less a personality trait or a trait of their curse, and more something written by an overeager monster hunter primer author.

[Wizard_Lizard]

I saw this on reddit but I'm 100% using it now.
(Can't find the link rn)
But Genies reproduces by the process of someone wishing for infinite wishes, causing them to turn into genies, who have infinite wishes that they cannot use on themselves..

[Bohandas]

I saw this on reddit but I'm 100% using it now.
(Can't find the link rn)
But Genies reproduces by the process of someone wishing for infinite wishes, causing them to turn into genies, who have infinite wishes that they cannot use on themselves..

Wasn't that the end of Alladin 2?

[Lord Raziere]

Wasn't that the end of Alladin 2?

No thats the end of Aladdin 1, Aladdin 2's ending was Jafar dying when his lamp was destroyed.

[Wizard_Lizard]

Oh huh. I guess I should rewatch Aladdin it's been so long I don't remember that at all...

[Millstone85]

Oh huh. I guess I should rewatch Aladdin it's been so long I don't remember that at all...Neither do I. Or well, it is debatable.

Jafar's wishes were:

"I wish to rule on high, a sultan!"
"I wish to be the most powerful sorcerer, in the world!"
"I wish to be an all-powerful genie!"

The last one results in the apparition of cuffs around Jafar's wrists, and of a lamp that sucks him in.

Now, yes, it could be said that Jafar wished for more wishes. Personally, I thought that was already the case with his second wish. But anyway, he explicitly wanted to become a genie.

The surprise was the enslavement. And in Jafar's defense, or Aladdin's charge, why would either of them think that genies begin their existence as slaves?

In the sequel, it is revealed that Genie lost some of his power after being freed. So I suppose it could retroactively be said that an "all-powerful genie" had to be bound to a lamp.

[Spore]

Oh huh. I guess I should rewatch Aladdin it's been so long I don't remember that at all...

Do it. The movie holds up and is in some ways more modern than newer Disney movies. Plus you'll get a few references now that you might have missed.




Now, yes, it could be said that Jafar wished for more wishes. Personally, I thought that was already the case with his second wish. But anyway, he explicitly wanted to become a genie.

We have no frame of reference of what it means to be "the most powerful sorcerer in the world". But I think wish-granting is explicitly exclusive to Genies in this world. Wish as in: reality-altering stuff.


The surprise was the enslavement. And in Jafar's defense, or Aladdin's charge, why would either of them think that genies begin their existence as slaves?

I mean without resorting to actual mythology which makes the whole movies questionable, you have the frame of reference that "djinns are bound". Genie is the djinn's name, but also its status and type of creature. So yes, it would be known that they start as slaves.


In the sequel, it is revealed that Genie lost some of his power after being freed. So I suppose it could retroactively be said that an "all-powerful genie" had to be bound to a lamp.

Mythology rant: Genie is a "djinn" in the widest sense, a less powerful genie, which is an air spirit that protects humans and nature. Jafar is modelled after a more demonic and evil "ifrit", that is actively malicious and wants to destroy humanity, make them suffer and coax them into sinning.

Much of it is doused in real-world religion (genies are proto-religious creatures, which are retroactively used in religious texts) so if you are interested, research on your own, it is pretty interesting.


But Genies reproduces by the process of someone wishing for infinite wishes, causing them to turn into genies, who have infinite wishes that they cannot use on themselves..

An interesting head-canon but I actually feel like it is much nicer to make genies nothing but just "banished" devils. An ifrit would be a banished devil; they are LE, they need to fulfill their contracts, they love fire. They got a bit overzealous, wanting to overthrow the evil establishment with the ultimate power of spells, and they got their wish (heh!). It would be so perfectly on brand for 5e devil lore to create genies that have ultimate power to fulfill the wildest dreams, but cannot use them for themselves.

[Millstone85]

We have no frame of reference of what it means to be "the most powerful sorcerer in the world". But I think wish-granting is explicitly exclusive to Genies in this world. Wish as in: reality-altering stuff.We know it lets you trap people inside hourglasses, or turn yourself into a giant snake.

And for what it is worth, a deleted song (https://youtu.be/W9vXZncjGvk?t=123) would have confirmed that all "Prince Ali" got was a larger and louder version of Cinderella's carriage and attendants.

Jafar: What were the horses?
Genie: They were roaches.

Jafar: And the camels?
Genie: They were gnats.

Jafar: And the elephant?
Genie: His monkey, and the rest of them were rats.

Jafar: They were rodents?
Genie: Yes, diseased ones.

Jafar: Oh, how very very sad.

If only Genie had pulled the same thing on "Sultan Jafar". Instead of taking over an actual country, let's send you to some remote anthill and fancy it up. :smalltongue:

[SpyOne]

The surprise was the enslavement. And in Jafar's defense, or Aladdin's charge, why would either of them think that genies begin their existence as slaves?

Aladdin references right then why he would think that, by paraphrasing something Genie had said to him: It's all part-and-parcel of the whole genie package - phenomenal cosmic power, itty bitty living space.
Genie had told Aladdin that being a genie meant being bound to a lamp, unless someone wished for your freedom.

To Jafar, of course, that came as a complete surprise.

[vasilidor]

Evil gods keep their followers evil by punishing good deeds and commanding evil be done to prove their loyalty.

[Luccan]

Evil gods keep their followers evil by punishing good deeds and commanding evil be done to prove their loyalty.

This is almost explicitly how Maglubiyet works in Volo's (5e). It raises a lot of questions since he apparently smites any goblinoid that steps out of line.

[NovenFromTheSun]

I’m not actually sure if this is just a “head”canon or implied somewhere in the text, but the ring of Sigil is a door with a key somewhere.

[hamishspence]

This is almost explicitly how Maglubiyet works in Volo's (5e). It raises a lot of questions since he apparently smites any goblinoid that steps out of line.

I've been rereading that, and I couldn't find any references to him smiting goblinoids.

The two bugbear deities, yes - but they don't usually have clerics, and that's how their manifest their disapproval, rather than having clerics do it.

[Silly Name]

I've been rereading that, and I couldn't find any references to him smiting goblinoids.

The two bugbear deities, yes - but they don't usually have clerics, and that's how their manifest their disapproval, rather than having clerics do it.

D&D gods usually aren't Discworld gods who go around breaking the windows of atheists. Being directly smote by a deity should require some tremendous act against said deity, such as despoiling their main temple or destroying a relic of theirs... Simply doing something the deity disapproves of in general shouldn't cut it, otherwise Lathander would be able to immediately kill every necromancer in Faerun.

(Showing disapproval with a follower in non-lethal ways is probably more tolerated - sending omens and the like)

[hamishspence]

Yup - when Drizzt saves an elf's life, Lolth doesn't smite him, she has a demon minion warn the house leader that the house is "out of the favour of Lolth" - and lets the house members do all the investigating.

[Millstone85]

I’m not actually sure if this is just a “head”canon or implied somewhere in the text, but the ring of Sigil is a door with a key somewhere.The Spire is the key. You just need to find how to lower the city a bit.

[vasilidor]

1. the gods are not omniscient in Faerune.
2. the gods also reward behavior they like, see clerics and other divine classes, with power.
3. most of the punishment is dealt with by minions and clerics.

[Silly Name]

1. the gods are not omniscient in Faerune.
2. the gods also reward behavior they like, see clerics and other divine classes, with power.
3. most of the punishment is dealt with by minions and clerics.

I'm pretty sure all of those things are actual canon.

[Luccan]

I've been rereading that, and I couldn't find any references to him smiting goblinoids.

The two bugbear deities, yes - but they don't usually have clerics, and that's how their manifest their disapproval, rather than having clerics do it.

I got them mixed up. I think Volo's tried to make humanoid monsters sympathetic in all the wrong ways and that particular one always stuck out to me as being weirdly PC-hostile for a book that let you actually play one of those creatures

[vasilidor]

I'm pretty sure all of those things are actual canon.

I am aware, but it is an explanation as to why every instance of someone acting good in the Drow homes and amongst goblins is not autopunished by gods who want evil while said gods are trying to make everyone evil.

[Witty Username]

Some Abyss personal lore. Killing a Demon Lord within the Abyss will cause the absorbed world they are within to return to being a material plane. And then they will reform in another area of the Abyss along with any demons that had been killed in the area.

[noob]

Some Abyss personal lore. Killing a Demon Lord within the Abyss will cause the absorbed world they are within to return to being a material plane. And then they will reform in another area of the Abyss along with any demons that had been killed in the area.

So if you kill an infinity of times a specific demon lord you can unabyss the entire abyss?

[PairO'Dice Lost]

Killing a Demon Lord within the Abyss will cause the absorbed world they are within to return to being a material plane.

...did 5e retcon Abyssal layers to all be corrupted former Material Plane worlds that were then absorbed into the Abyss, or something like that? Or is "Abyssal layers are absorbed Material worlds" part of the headcanon?

[Millstone85]

...did 5e retcon Abyssal layers to all be corrupted former Material Plane worlds that were then absorbed into the Abyss, or something like that? Or is "Abyssal layers are absorbed Material worlds" part of the headcanon?Not necessarily all layers, but 5e's description of a typical demonic invasion does end with:
When a demonic incursion runs its course, no vestige remains of the world that existed before--in effect, the realm has become another layer of the Abyss.

[thorr-kan]

Not necessarily all layers, but 5e's description of a typical demonic invasion does end with:

There are also a few references in late 3E material to ongoing demonic invasions to different material planes.

[noob]

how many campaigns are about defeating a demonic invasion?

[Satinavian]

So if you kill an infinity of times a specific demon lord you can unabyss the entire abyss?
Even if that would work, no.

Calculating with infinities is tricky. No matter how many layers you destroy, the number of remaining layers does not change. Also only if the layers are countable you would even arrive at every given layer at a finite time.

[Cicciograna]

Even if that would work, no.

Calculating with infinities is tricky. No matter how many layers you destroy, the number of remaining layers does not change. Also only if the layers are countable you would even arrive at every given layer at a finite time.

New head canon: Abyss layers have cardinality of aleph TWO.
Because CHAOS!

[KillianHawkeye]

how many campaigns are about defeating a demonic invasion?

A theoretically infinite number. :smallsmile:

[Witty Username]

...did 5e retcon Abyssal layers to all be corrupted former Material Plane worlds that were then absorbed into the Abyss, or something like that? Or is "Abyssal layers are absorbed Material worlds" part of the headcanon?

I expect the intention is there is a core Abyss and it is surrounded-connected to a vast expanse of conquered worlds.
Because Demon Lords are referred to in the invasion stuff, I figure their domains are mostly worlds conquered over the millennia.

[PairO'Dice Lost]

Not necessarily all layers, but 5e's description of a typical demonic invasion does end with:


When a demonic incursion runs its course, no vestige remains of the world that existed before--in effect, the realm has become another layer of the Abyss.

:smallannoyed:

<morbo>Outer Planes do not work that way!</morbo>


There are also a few references in late 3E material to ongoing demonic invasions to different material planes.


I expect the intention is there is a core Abyss and it is surrounded-connected to a vast expanse of conquered worlds.

There's a proud tradition of demons invading various worlds and demon princes trying to conquer worlds for themselves, going all the way back to the Queen of the Demonweb Pits module wherein Lolth's realm had portals to seven different worlds that her forces had conquered or were in the process of conquering. Having lots of portals/breaches/rifts/etc. between certain Abyssal layers and certain Material worlds is totally kosher.

But that's very different from bunches of Material Plane worlds getting yoinked into the Abyss, especially if that's supposed to be a natural consequence of having a critical mass of demons rather than it resulting from a fancy one-off ritual of some sort. Regions shifting between planes due to local philosophical shifts has always been only an Outer Plane thing (layers moving between planes, Outlands gate towns getting absorbed into their connected planes, etc.), and it kinda has to work that way because otherwise it severely undermines the Material Plane's position as a cosmic Switzerland and one would start seeing things like the Blood War spilling out into every Prime world as both sides try to absorb worlds for themselves.

That bit of 5e lore is simply very poorly considered and, appropriately for this thread, should be shot with a headcannon.

[Witty Username]

That is kinda why the Nine Hells exist. By Tome Of Foes assessment. Devils can no longer add to the Nine Hells due to the Pact Primeval acting as a limit on how much they can exploit any given material world. And Asmoudeous uses the Blood War as a justification for his continued existence because of how much he devotes to containing the Abyss. Mordenkienen's take being that they are close enough in power that it is difficult for either to make permanent gains and will periodically aid one side or the other to maintain that out of fear that if either wins the entire multiverse will be put at risk.

[Millstone85]

By Tome Of Foes assessment. Devils can no longer add to the Nine Hells due to the Pact Primeval acting as a limit on how much they can exploit any given material world. And Asmoudeous uses the Blood War as a justification for his continued existence because of how much he devotes to containing the Abyss.MToF describes how Asmodeus got Primus to acknowledge him as a force of law and a necessary evil. It also attributes to Primus the creation of the Ruby Rod as an artifact that "grants Asmodeus and his underlings the right to enter into contracts with mortals for their souls but unleashes an inescapable punishment upon any devil that breaches such a contract" (MToF p10).

I don't see anything about a limit on how much they can exploit any given material world. Also, the book soon after says that Stygia may once have been a world of the Material Plane, whose "inhabitants, facing annihilation, are said to have pledged their souls and their world to Asmodeus" (MToF p14). That would have been a good place to mention such a pact now being forbidden.

[Bohandas]

The races that seem to be monocultures aren't. They just look that way from the outside

[Witty Username]

Devils can contract mortals use make use of martial worlds via imperialism, but there isn't going to be a 10th Hell anytime soon. I would need to double check if that was in Tome of Foes, though.

[vasilidor]

Orc fashion is based around being such a gaudy Eyesore that no one can stand to look at you because it hurts too much.
Imagine Chartreuse with the most brilliant orange dots and pink stripes.

[HidesHisEyes]

In my Forgotten Realms games, Drizzt, Elminster and all the other celebrities are long-dead heroes of legend. This way they can’t swoop in and save the day, and don’t need contrived reasons not to. I like the player characters to be unequivocally the most powerful people for thousands of miles around except for their enemies.

[KorvinStarmast]

In my Forgotten Realms games, Drizzt, Elminster and all the other celebrities are long-dead heroes of legend.
You are my hero.

This way they can’t swoop in and save the day, and don’t need contrived reasons not to. I like the player characters to be unequivocally the most powerful people for thousands of miles around except for their enemies. So do I.

[dafrca]

In my Forgotten Realms games, Drizzt, Elminster and all the other celebrities are long-dead heroes of legend.
I like this idea. Allows the stories to still be told but allows the new legends to grow and be built by the party. Nice. :smallsmile:

[HidesHisEyes]

You are my hero.
So do I.


I like this idea. Allows the stories to still be told but allows the new legends to grow and be built by the party. Nice. :smallsmile:

Thanks! Yeah it works for me. And if you are playing with people who know and like those characters you can still put in little nods to them, like they could find one of Drizzt’s swords or something.

[Luccan]

Orc fashion is based around being such a gaudy Eyesore that no one can stand to look at you because it hurts too much.
Imagine Chartreuse with the most brilliant orange dots and pink stripes.

Funny thing, the 3.5 Monster Manual (and I assume the 3.0 as well) specifically mentions orcs dressing in horrendous colors, at least by human taste. This has just helped me form my own headcanon as to why they dress that way (in 3.5): Orcs actually have weak eyes for identifying color, probably linked to their light sensitivity. In order for an Orc to appear flashy and stand out, as they might want to do in battle to distinguish themselves, they have to wear vibrant colors that stick out from their surroundings so other orcs can appreciate the difference.

[KorvinStarmast]

Funny thing, the 3.5 Monster Manual (and I assume the 3.0 as well) specifically mentions orcs dressing in horrendous colors, at least by human taste. This has just helped me form my own headcanon as to why they dress that way (in 3.5): Orcs actually have weak eyes for identifying color, probably linked to their light sensitivity. In order for an Orc to appear flashy and stand out, as they might want to do in battle to distinguish themselves, they have to wear vibrant colors that stick out from their surroundings so other orcs can appreciate the difference. Hmm, so they dress like golfers in the 1960's and 1970's. :smallbiggrin:
(The outrageous colors golfers wore then was common currency for jokes and gags when I was growing up
- I've noticed that only a few golfers now do that, but some still do).

[Bohandas]

In fantasy in general I'm struck with the idea of most summoning diagrams actually being based on petrie polygons (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Petrie_polygon) of regular polytopes, such as the 4-simplex and the octohedron

https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/b/b9/4-simplex_t0.svg/240px-4-simplex_t0.svg.pnghttps://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/7/79/3-cube_t2.svg/240px-3-cube_t2.svg.png

[PairO'Dice Lost]

I've actually used that exact flavor explanation before! The "Grand Unified Theory of Magic" I use in my games involves spells/powers/etc. being something along the lines of 27-dimensional geometric constructs, and the prevalence of written magic and glyphs and such in the rules is thus due to the ease of projecting portions of such constructs onto 2D and 3D surfaces.

To assign specific shapes to different kinds of magic circles (because in one game I needed an in-game reason to use summoning circles with a bunch of different kinds of polygrams), I ruled that the summoning diagrams for LG, CG, LE, and CE outsiders incorporated pentagrams, nonagrams, triangles, and heptagrams, respectively. Pentagrams for LG because Celestia is opposed by the Abyss and pentagrams are the classical demon thing, nonagrams for CG because Arborea is opposed by the Nine Hells, triangles for LE because Arborea has three layers, and heptagrams for CE because of the Seven Heavens.

TN outsiders got octagrams, for the eight alignments surrounding the "center" of the Outlands; natives of the Transitive Planes got hexagrams, for the two sets of three known Transitive Planes (Astral/Ethereal/Ordial and Dream/Shadow/Mirror); elementals got diamonds, for the four Elemental Planes; energons got circles with lines down the center, for the two Energy Planes; and plain ol' magic circles covered everything else that didn't fit into those categories, so that covered all the numbers from 1 through 9 and made for a nice logical-seeming progression.

[Wizard_Lizard]

Fiends will seek out sorcerers who haven't tapped into their magic yet and make deals for their souls in exchange for magic as a scam.

[NovenFromTheSun]

Because of Strahd being called the first vampire, I think that the world Barovia came from is older than most other prime material worlds, perhaps one of the first inhabited (by humans at least).

With Fizbang’s Treasury of Dragons, I’m going to update this to say that Barovia was part of the First World.

[thorr-kan]

With Fizbang’s Treasury of Dragons, I’m going to update this to say that Barovia was part of the First World.
Oh, that's a clever one. It would be a nice, deep bit of lore.

[NovenFromTheSun]

Oh, that's a clever one. It would be a nice, deep bit of lore.

Thank you kindly!

I have some other thoughts on it:
1) The Sunless Spire is listed as a place with echoes across the worlds, and where Gulthias, who from what I understand was also an early vampire, got staked and unleashed the plague of Gultheas Trees and their blight offspring. Possible evidence for my theory?

2) A possible snag is that the Ulmest Inquisitors entry in VRGtR states that their current home base is in a city north of where Barovia once was. I could say that’s it’s on a world echo that contained the site of Barovia, but it still feels like papering it over.

[Vknight]

Hmm, so they dress like golfers in the 1960's and 1970's. :smallbiggrin:
(The outrageous colors golfers wore then was common currency for jokes and gags when I was growing up
- I've noticed that only a few golfers now do that, but some still do).

My orcs do it because each clan has there own unique and terrible colour scheme that they proudly wear to stand out when battling one another.

[dafrca]

My orcs do it because each clan has there own unique and terrible colour scheme that they proudly wear to stand out when battling one another.

The mental image of a bunch of orcs battling while dressed like golfers from the 70's is just too good to pass up. I would love to see that as an illustration myself. :smallbiggrin:

[Vknight]

The mental image of a bunch of orcs battling while dressed like golfers from the 70's is just too good to pass up. I would love to see that as an illustration myself. :smallbiggrin:

The more hybrid celtic and golfer but correct

[Spore]

My orcs do it because each clan has there own unique and terrible colour scheme that they proudly wear to stand out when battling one another.

Imagine their battles being ABOUT the color scheme.

"Rose be superior color. Death to Mauve clan!!

"Waaaaaaagh!"

And they would behead a fellow orc for calling turquoise blue.

[KorvinStarmast]

Imagine their battles being ABOUT the color scheme.

"Rose be superior color. Death to Mauve clan!!

"Waaaaaaagh!"

And they would behead a fellow orc for calling turquoise blue. Yes, a thousand times yes! Kind of like football fans … :smalleek:

[LibraryOgre]

Imagine their battles being ABOUT the color scheme.

"Rose be superior color. Death to Mauve clan!!

"Waaaaaaagh!"

And they would behead a fellow orc for calling turquoise blue.

Consider: If orcs have a different color range (perhaps they see into the infrared, but lose blues and purples.

And so you have orcs who are partially dressed in outlandish colors because they just kinda look greyish.

[KorvinStarmast]

And so you have orcs who are partially dressed in outlandish colors because they just kinda look greyish. Elf Eye for the Fashionable Orc might become a huge hit as a traveling show ...

[Bohandas]

animate dead isn't [Evil] for any particular philosophical or consequentialist reason but simply because of a mechanistic quirk of karmic dynamics

[Spore]

animate dead isn't [Evil] for any particular philosophical or consequentialist reason but simply because of a mechanistic quirk of karmic dynamics

Evil and Good being cosmic forces based on objective criteria (belonging or opposing the Upper Planes) is long in my serious D&D head canon.

[KorvinStarmast]

The timeline as I see it:
OD&D - Early Dark Ages
AD&D 1E - Transition of Dark Ages to Early Renaissance
AD&D 2E - Early Renaissance
D&D 3.0-3.5 - Mid Renaissance
D&D 4E - NEVER HAPPENED - or possibly a past timeline off of the d20 Modern setting
D&D 5E - After Renaissance, maybe just before what would have been our Industrial Revolution
*Eberron in play is like adding the Industrial Revolution to the edition's timeline
I'd suggest OD&D is Late Dark Ages (Clovis-Charlemagne) to early Medieval, given that it has Turcopoles showing up for a cleric when they build a stronghold. :smallwink:
But I love your timeline, would use!

[No brains]

I'd also like to imagine a kind of continuity between the editions. Old recurring characters were present for the changes of edition, remember the way things were, and maybe had a hand in the change. I remember reading something about Die, Vecna, Die! being the 'end of 2E' and I love to take that literally. Vecna ascending to godhood brought forth the d20 system. His evil plan to destroy d10 initiative and percentile skills won.

[Bohandas]

Each layer of Mount Celestia is onfinitely tall. That's why normal mountaineering is insufficient to ascend it

[RedMage125]

Evil and Good being cosmic forces based on objective criteria (belonging or opposing the Upper Planes) is long in my serious D&D head canon.

Pretty sure that's actually canon...

[Beleriphon]

Yes, a thousand times yes! Kind of like football fans … :smalleek:

Almost like another franchise in space has football hooligan orks...

Git em boyz! Deff to da humies! Krump em roight good! Kick em roight in da teef!

[KorvinStarmast]

Almost like another franchise in space has football hooligan orks...

Git em boyz! Deff to da humies! Krump em roight good! Kick em roight in da teef! I am not a WH40K player, so I'll just guess at that reference and recall that GW originated in the UK. :smallcool:

[Beleriphon]

I am not a WH40K player, so I'll just guess at that reference and recall that GW originated in the UK. :smallcool:

Very much WH40K. Orks were always a straight up parody of the football hooligans.

I need ta fin' da boyz and give sum humie a good krumpin!

[Steven K]

Lawful Good deities are just as willing and able to find and abuse major exploits in rules systems, even ones they crafted themselves, as any Lawful Evil creature. As such, at least some of them likely can and do have ways of influencing the nine hells and its denizens directly in subtle ways.

For example, a relatively junior devil or collective thereof finally gathers the resources to become a warlock patron. They choose an adventurer, and said adventurer joins a party with a cleric whose deity is actively paying attention to that cleric at the time. This deity is one of the savier lawful good types in the pantheon (maybe one of the important figures, maybe a comparatively recent and minor godling who nonetheless was taught or intuitively knew a great deal about what they could and could not get away with).

Said deity somehow has a comprehensive knowledge of the infernal bureaucracy, enough to quietly send a request to negotiate directly with the warlock's patron(s) to whoever could, and also would, approve it and do so quickly and secretly, maybe in exchange for some minor concession or drawing on a precedent already established by someone further up the chain, or a favour owed. They might do this under an alias of some kind, possibly posing as or working through a fictional or complicit devil to avoid undue attention from both sides.

They get permission, and in short order contact the warlock patron, and spin a totally true justification that convinces the devil to make a 'non-aggression' contract or whatever, ostensibly to protect the cleric, but does so in perfect (infernal) legalese such that the devil is both genuinely impressed, and suddenly privy to 'secret information' about the gods and their dealings, which might suggest to it for any number of reasons a course of action it had never considered before, without realising the god was actively working towards some longstanding plan or purpose designed to favour Law as a whole or long-term overall Good, a plan conceived long before that devil was even an imp.

[Bohandas]

Despite being ostensibly concerned specifically with arcane secrets and forbidden knowledge, the cult of Vecna's money and influence comes more from trading in day-to-day secrets and blackmail

[LibraryOgre]

Kobolds do not "have scales like reptiles", but rather "have horrible skin conditions". They're MANGY in the truest sense of the word. Kobolds with access to skin care or Cure Disease? They look like little dog-people.

[Luccan]

Kobolds do not "have scales like reptiles", but rather "have horrible skin conditions". They're MANGY in the truest sense of the word. Kobolds with access to skin care or Cure Disease? They look like little dog-people.

I'm considering moving Kobolds to be seen in-universe as a descriptor for "those tiny, thieving, violent things that aren't goblins or our local murderous amphibians". Some kobolds are dog people, some are tiny dragon/lizard folk. Others are more like bipedal rats and then some are based on those early mammal-reptile ancestors I can't remember the name of (which I might have read the idea for in this thread).

[LibraryOgre]

I'm considering moving Kobolds to be seen in-universe as a descriptor for "those tiny, thieving, violent things that aren't goblins or our local murderous amphibians". Some kobolds are dog people, some are tiny dragon/lizard folk. Others are more like bipedal rats and then some are based on those early mammal-reptile ancestors I can't remember the name of (which I might have read the idea for in this thread).

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Synapsid

[Luccan]

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Synapsid

Yeah that's the one. I don't remember where I saw the art of Synapsid kobolds, but now I have too many options for different kobolds to not use them all.

[Spore]

Pretty sure that's actually canon...

Sorry for the late reply. Yes and no, because the debate on whether Good and Evil are cosmic or karmic forces changes from game to game.


I'm considering moving Kobolds to be seen in-universe as a descriptor for "those tiny, thieving, violent things that aren't goblins or our local murderous amphibians". Some kobolds are dog people, some are tiny dragon/lizard folk. Others are more like bipedal rats and then some are based on those early mammal-reptile ancestors I can't remember the name of (which I might have read the idea for in this thread).

Goblins, kobolds, faeries, pixies and brownies are actually just exchangable descriptions for the average D&D commoner to describe "tiny ugly humanoids" that robbed us, killed some of our livestock and are generally ugly to be around. When described that a group of goblins has raided a nearby farm, make sure to get a proper description, else your group might be caught in a weird game of fey origin as said goblins are suddenly brownies and other fey instead of the expected low level mooks.

Remember, the farmer has half a dozen hearty children, a wife and a toolshed full of make-shift weapons. He could fend of something as poorly coordinated as a goblin raid. Fey however? Their grandma has told them not to screw with fey.

[elros]

For me, thieves don’t have beards but all assassins do.

[KillianHawkeye]

For me, thieves don’t have beards but all assassins do.

What? Why? :smallconfused:

[Bohandas]

I think he means specifically that they have goatees

[ideasmith]

For me, thieves don’t have beards but all assassins do.

This calls for more explanation. This is the first time I have heard of a class having facial hair restrictions.

Also, how do female assassins meet this requirement?

[No brains]

Assassins have beards because taking beards off of bodies is a way to prove you did a job. Beards have terrible resale value anywhere else and that's why thieves don't take them.

[elros]

What? Why? :smallconfused:
I know it is silly, but it started because halflings and elves had dexterity bonuses, and neither race is known for having facial hair. And no self respecting dwarf would be a thief, so only a beardless dwarf would be one.
And the idea of an assassin having a beard grew out of the Star Trek joke that evil counterparts had facial hair.
This was actually a running joke in one of our campaigns. And yes, we were dorks.

[RedMage125]

And the idea of an assassin having a beard grew out of the Star Trek joke that evil counterparts had facial hair.

LOL, you mean this...

I think he means specifically that they have goatees

was correct?

[KillianHawkeye]

It was only the evil Spock who had facial hair. Everyone else's mirror counterparts were identical to the normal universe version. Well, I think Sulu had a big scar on his face. Should all assassins have big scar on their face?

[elros]

It was only the evil Spock who had facial hair. Everyone else's mirror counterparts were identical to the normal universe version. Well, I think Sulu had a big scar on his face. Should all assassins have big scar on their face?
You have to remember in the 1980s there was no streaming or internet, so we had to rely on our memories of the Star Trek episodes. Details like goatees and others were glossed over for the sake of levity.
It’s the same reason why we quoted Monty Python- it was near impossible to watch, so our quotes were how we shared the experience. I am sure we made mistakes about of the exact dialogue, but we were close enough to be entertained.

[KillianHawkeye]

You have to remember in the 1980s there was no streaming or internet, so we had to rely on our memories of the Star Trek episodes. Details like goatees and others were glossed over for the sake of levity.
It’s the same reason why we quoted Monty Python- it was near impossible to watch, so our quotes were how we shared the experience. I am sure we made mistakes about of the exact dialogue, but we were close enough to be entertained.

In the 80s, you could easily find some TV channel playing reruns of Star Trek in syndication. That's how I watched it as a kid.

[elros]

In the 80s, you could easily find some TV channel playing reruns of Star Trek in syndication. That's how I watched it as a kid.
You are 100% right, and Star Trek was shown consistently on one of my local TV channels (https://retroist.com/as-a-kid-i-watched-star-trek-on-wpix-channel-11/) since 1969 (https://pix11.com/news/see-it-1969-memo-announces-star-trek-is-joining-the-wpix-lineup-starting-a-beloved-tradition/), so a lot of people knew about Star Trek. The problem, however, was that there was no "on demand", so we had to watch whatever episode was showing at whatever time slot the station wanted, which was usually midnight. There were some die-hard Star Trek fans who knew a lot about the show, but I was not that into it, so there were a lot of episodes I didn't see. On top of that, there was no internet to fact check or discuss issues, so I had only passing familiarity with the show. That's why we knew about the parallel universe and evil Spock had facial hair, but not enough to know Mr Sulu had a big scar instead. If I had known that, I absolutely would have had assassins with big scars on their faces!

BTW, growing up in the 80s I found that D&D players were more into LoTR and other fantasy novels than into science fiction, but that might have just been my experience. The people who liked sci-fi gravitated more to Traveller or BattleTech.

[No brains]

Because they are tiny, stealthy, and can all turn invisible/ change shape, everyone is constantly watched by imps, quasits, pixies, and sprites. It's very hard to prove otherwise, and a great tool for DMs to have NPCs of any alignment learn what the PCs are up to.

[Bohandas]

The ability boost books change to tell their specific reader the specific things they personally need to know to improve themself in that area. That's why copying them over normally doesn't do any good; before they've been used they don;t really say anything, and after they've been used they say things that are specific to one oarticular person

[Wizard_Lizard]

Nonwerewolf Lycanthropes really hate the term 'Lycanthrope' as 'lycan' is wolf, so other were-creatures use terms such as 'zooanthrope' or other terms specific to their condition.

[Lord Raziere]

Nonwerewolf Lycanthropes really hate the term 'Lycanthrope' as 'lycan' is wolf, so other were-creatures use terms such as 'zooanthrope' or other terms specific to their condition.

the universal term is therianthrope actually.

[Millstone85]

Nonwerewolf Lycanthropes really hate the term 'Lycanthrope' as 'lycan' is wolf, so other were-creatures use terms such as 'zooanthrope' or other terms specific to their condition.
the universal term is therianthrope actually.I was going to follow up with a related humorous headcanon, but it turns out it is plain canon that the werewolf-vs-wolfwere feud is shared between all therianthropes and antherions (https://forgottenrealms.fandom.com/wiki/Antherion). :smallbiggrin:

However, I disagree with the latter condition being passed only to offsprings. A normal wolf bitten by a wolfwere should become a wolfwere.

[LibraryOgre]

I was going to follow up with a related humorous headcanon, but it turns out it is plain canon that the werewolf-vs-wolfwere feud is shared between all therianthropes and antherions (https://forgottenrealms.fandom.com/wiki/Antherion). :smallbiggrin:

However, I disagree with the latter condition being passed only to offsprings. A normal wolf bitten by a wolfwere should become a wolfwere.

"Even a wolf who is clean of fur, and licks himself by night, may become a wolfwere when the moon is full and the belladonna blooms." :smallbiggrin:

[KorvinStarmast]

Should all assassins have big scar on their face? Only if they deal in hard drugs and have an Uzi a repeating crossbow as their Little Friend. :smallbiggrin:

[Metastachydium]

'lycan' is wolf

No it isn't. Contrary to popular belief, lycanthrope does not combine the roots *lycan- and *throp-; it comes from the Greek term λυκανθρωπος (transl. lykanthrōpos), a combination of λυκος ('wolf') and ανθρωπος ('human').


so other were-creatures use terms such as 'zooanthrope' or other terms specific to their condition.

That would be zoanthrope and the common term is indeed therianthrope.

[Millstone85]

'lycan' is wolf
No it isn't. Contrary to popular belief, lycanthrope does not combine the roots *lycan- and *throp-; it comes from the Greek term λυκανθρωπος (transl. lykanthrōpos), a combination of λυκος ('wolf') and ανθρωπος ('human').... Okay, I had to parse that.

You are saying the word commonly thought to be a contraction of lycan-anthrope is actually just lyc-anthrope.