DnD Head Canons

[elros]

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
I really like that explanation! It is fluffy and provides a justification for one use books.

[Metastachydium]

... 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.

Precisely. The Greek etymon of lycanthrope derives from λυκο-ανθρωπος (transl. lyko-anthrōpos) through the elision of the stem-final o in λυκο-ς (which can be treated as an irregular contraction as well, but I digress), and thereby, lycanthrope is ultimately indeed really just lyc(o)-anthrope. In fact, λυκαν- as a root isn't even a thing in Greek (well, λυκαν (transl. lykān) does exist as the contracted (!) Doric (!) singular accusative (!) of λυκεη ('wolfskin'), but inflected forms like that entering a compound like this makes no sense whatsoever grammatically).

[Millstone85]

Precisely. The Greek etymon of lycanthrope derives from λυκο-ανθρωπος (transl. lyko-anthrōpos) through the elision of the stem-final o in λυκο-ς (which can be treated as an irregular contraction as well, but I digress), and thereby, lycanthrope is ultimately indeed really just lyc(o)-anthrope. In fact, λυκαν- as a root isn't even a thing in Greek (well, λυκαν (transl. lykān) does exist as the contracted (!) Doric (!) singular accusative (!) of λυκεη ('wolfskin'), but inflected forms like that entering a compound like this makes no sense whatsoever grammatically).Since you understand how to properly make words from Greek roots, which I really don't, what do you think of the aforementioned "antherion"? Should it have been left as "anthrotherion"? Is there better?

[Metastachydium]

what do you think of the aforementioned "antherion"?

It's a perfectly good Greek word and one that's close to my heart. It also absolutely doesn't mean what the developers seem to have thought it means. It is the diminutive substantivized form of ανθηρ-ος/-α/-ον ('flowery, blooming etc.'). It would mean something like 'little flowering plant' and similar stuff.


Should it have been left as "anthrotherion"?

Definitely not. That means, well, nothing. Unlike andro- ('(male hu)man'), *anthro- is not the root/stem of any Greek word that I know of. Please don't use this one.


Is there better?

Certainly. It's a bit on the bulky side, however. It'd look something like anthropotherion, anthropother or (following a common pattern of anglicization) anthropothere.

[Millstone85]

It's a perfectly good Greek word and one that's close to my heart. It also absolutely doesn't mean what the developers seem to have thought it means. It is the diminutive substantivized form of ανθηρ-ος/-α/-ον ('flowery, blooming etc.'). It would mean something like 'little flowering plant' and similar stuff.It does go well with your username and avatar. :smallbiggrin:


Definitely not. That means, well, nothing. Unlike andro- ('(male hu)man'), *anthro- is not the root/stem of any Greek word that I know of.
It'd look something like anthropotherion, anthropother or (following a common pattern of anglicization) anthropothere.Ah, I see. Like how we have anthropology and not just "anthrology". Also, yes, I like anthropothere. It feels in line with therianthrope, and like it only needs an é to become a French word.

[Metastachydium]

It does go well with your username and avatar. :smallbiggrin:

Right?


Ah, I see. Like how we have anthropology and not just "anthrology".

Mhm.


Also, yes, I like anthropothere. It feels in line with therianthrope, and like it only needs an é to become a French word.

Glad I could help!

[RedMage125]

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').
I mean...that one poster aside*, a lot of D&D players already knew that it was "lykos" and "anthropos" (I know there are accent marks in there, but I'm tired and forgot the hotkeys). It was explicitly mentioned (along with the proper "therianthrope" moniker) in the 2e Monstrous Manual. Not to mention, those familiar with the root word of "anthropology" or "anthropomorphic" (with respect to "animal people" races), "philanthropy", etc.

I really think that more people were familiar with "lykos+anthropos" than you give them credit for.

*I suppose younger generations who grew up with the Underworld series already being a thing might also have mistaken "Lycan" for a distinct word. But I always caught that the "-an" was indicative of "anthropos". I kind of assumed that in that world, "Lycan" was something of a slur, implying that they were less than human. But the first of those movies came out when I was in college, and my generation also had a search engine called "lycos" (spelling is off, I know), whose mascot was a wolf.



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

What I found funny was that "zoanthrope" was the word used for the video game series Bloody Roar (awesome fighting game, where each character had a hybrid beast form). And I must confess that, when I was younger, I had thought it was a made-up word. Then when I was older, and started getting into etymology as a hobby interest (I am that big of a nerd), I found it wasn't. It was around the time I learned that "zoology" should probably sound more like "zoh-ah-lo-gee" than "zoo-ah-lo-gee". Which makes me think that even the shortened form of just "zoo" stems from American mispronunciation becoming so rampant.

[Spore]

With werecreatures, and creaturewere, I do suspect there are (permanent) transformations from humanoid to humanoid in D&D. The reincarnation spell is a heavy tip towards that idea. Aside from horrific wizard experiments (which base around 80% of weird monsters in this game) the idea of multiple personalities being reborn in one body is a cool concept (I admittedly stole from Final Fantasy 14, which stole it from Native American mythology) which would also explain both the idea that elves see being disconnected from one's physical sex a blessing and why transgender identities exist in D&D.

Because if half-breeds only exist because the gods allow the races to mix, after the same logic trans identities would form. "Hey, we have this male body right here. I know your person is melded with at least 7 people and three of them are male, so good luck in that life." shouts the god before thrusting the soul back into the body.

[Runa_Dacino]

With werecreatures, and creaturewere, I do suspect there are (permanent) transformations from humanoid to humanoid in D&D. The reincarnation spell is a heavy tip towards that idea. Aside from horrific wizard experiments (which base around 80% of weird monsters in this game) the idea of multiple personalities being reborn in one body is a cool concept (I admittedly stole from Final Fantasy 14, which stole it from Native American mythology) which would also explain both the idea that elves see being disconnected from one's physical sex a blessing and why transgender identities exist in D&D.

Because if half-breeds only exist because the gods allow the races to mix, after the same logic trans identities would form. "Hey, we have this male body right here. I know your person is melded with at least 7 people and three of them are male, so good luck in that life." shouts the god before thrusting the soul back into the body.

Savage Species shows rituals for permanent Humanoid-to-Humanoid transformations! It gives one idea of Orc to elf, I believe, or ogre to elf.

Within the Persistent World I play, my main character used to be a human worshipper of Sehanine Moonbow, and transgender to boot. She served her deity faithfully, did some Epic (TM) deeds in her service and was rewarded with a Miracle.

The Miracle reset her from a powerful sorcerer and adventurer to a Commoner Moon Elf woman, and she had to work to be an Adventurer proper again. She believes she was born in the body of a human man to learn empathy and insight which she lacked in her previous life. The Miracle, in technical terms, was a "Reincarnation". She is now a Bard/Cleric/Duelist after witnessing Time of Troubles on Evermeet.

I do doubt that Seldarine in Forgotten Realms would meld souls like that - Individuality is treasured for elves, after all! While Angharradh exists as a form of "Melded entity" - she is closer to the idea of elven marriage and villages and societies. Angharradh requires that a society/couple can "become one" during times of crises, and return to normalcy that celebrates differences when the crisis passes (after all, Aerdrie, Sehanine and Hanali continue to exist and do their own thing!)





As for my own headcanon in line with this: Chaotic Good clergies should have spells that match the body to the soul. This is backed up by the Halfling Pantheon granting spells that can forcibly turn those who have been gross enemies of halflings into a halfling (Demihuman Deities, Yondalla, Yondalla spells, Day in the Life)

[Bohandas]

One of my headcanons is that overdeities are limited to very specific areas where their overdeity powers actually work. This explains why Lord Ao seems to do nothing outside of Realmspace, the High God is unheard of outside of Krynnspace, and the Lady of Pain never seems to exert any direct influence boyond the city of Sigil

[Starlit Dragon]

The Wall of the Faithless is ardently defended by many evil gods, a few neutral ones, and a significant number of devils. The good aligned deities hate it, but tearing it down would be extremely difficult. Added to the fact that the Wall's existence benefits them, many benevolent gods grudgingly turn their heads aside.

The idea that the Wall is just or good in any manner is false, but many of its defenders have spread this idea among mortals.

Good aligned Outsiders often raid the wall, much as the fiends do. Slaadi also tear a few souls from it on occasion. Gods and their servants tend to be sparing and subtle, as not to start a divine war.

[Morphic tide]

Only planar creatures can have alignments.
The cosmology completely breaks from that. Alignment is something mortals have, while for Outsiders it's something they are. With mortals, their Alignment is a "pointer" made up of their acquired resonance with Outer Plane forces, with "Always" Evil being a matter of xenopsychology like Beholders, biological dependency on atrocity like Illithids, or overwhelmingly dominant culture-group exaltation of Evil-aligning behavior. With Outsiders, they are literally, physically, made out of the forces of Alignment. It doesn't matter that a Succubus turned out so strange she became a Paladin, she's still Evil because she's made out of the stuff of the Abyss. Meanwhile, "always Evil" mortals are a mix of fundamentally hostile xenopsychology like Beholders, biological dependency on atrocity like Illithid, and the work of Evil deities reinforcing cultural exultation of Evil acts like the Drow.


Abominations are the original yuan-ti. The human-like ones are the crossbreeds.
Actually, as they're literally human-snake hybrids descended from human cultists to various snake gods doing weird things with snakes, it's extremely likely the original Yuan-ti was most similar to a Broodguard, an obviously haphazard admixture of humanoid and reptilian characteristics. Also fits with being something that can be done to Humans. Unless the Abomination is just a high-power flavor of Sarrukh-Human hybrid, if one is willing to accept Serpent Kingdoms anything.


And Elans are the missing link. The creation of an elan kills the human, implanting a proto-tadpole. Elans are usually not aware of this themselves.
Wait, does this mean the Adversary accidentally completed the Elan project by figuring out how to finish survival of personality? I think it'd be better if the issue with Elans is that their "rebirth" introduces most of a new soul that occupies most of the central nervous system in a proto-Ceremorph, actually being harder to undo than Ceremorphosis because of the active dependency on this chimerism. Would have the funny side-effect that the Elan dies with further "rebirths", yet the original Human continues their unconscious half-life. It'd be a suitably ironic failure mode that gives a solid causative chain from Elan to Illithid.


Carceri was the first lower plane. Devils are an offshoot of its original jailers, and demons of its original inmates.
This implies that Evil was a late-comer rather than original to the cosmology for its source to be containment, and in any case this has wonky implications for the evolution of the cosmology.


Benevolent great old ones exist. But these entities rarely manifest in the planes, for they know their mere presence would warp matter and minds. Here are a few of them:

The Ophanim, with its many concentric flaming wheels sprouting wings with eyes for feathers.
The Flumph Seer Magnum, who protectively enfolds the Great Wheel in its noodly appendages.
The Purring Pit of Flerken, simply the most ad'awrable eldritch horror. Beware the claws, though.

Her Serenity the Lady of Pain is also a GOO. She would reabsorb the Great Wheel if she stepped out of the Cage.
So your ideas for them are "Biblically Accurate Angel stating Be Not Afraid", "The Flying Spaghetti Monster", "Obligatory Adorable Friend", and "Lady Of Pain is the First Cause"?


Now that "planes" from Magic: The Gathering are being adapted to 5e D&D, the Aether is totally another name for Spelljammer's Phlogiston.
Well, they are both highly flammable and neither sticks around in Planes very long... Normally. The reaction to Khaladesh from Spelljammers would be hilarious, a Plane with an active Phlogiston cycle that's used in widespread industry and sapients made of the stuff. Would also mean Aetherborn would not age in the Blind Eternities/Rainbow Ocean as basically the sole mechanism of that is Aether dissolution.


The creator of the couatls was, of course, Quetzalcoatl. He was also the lone good-aligned god of the yuan-ti.
The Yuan-ti are very opportunistic with their worship, the thing of their "Pantheon" is that snake gods have a nasty habit of sleeping for ridiculous amounts of time. As previously mentioned, they're descendants of your Swords and Sorcery snake-cults who decided to hybridize with Snakes. If you want to square that with the absurdity that is the Sarrukh, it'd be collaberators among early Humans.


Illithids are the degenerate descendants of aboleths..
While one of the impressively direct routes, there's too much missing and too drastic a decline. Illithids being the result of "plugging" holes in the Elan organism with Abeloth biology until the result was a functional species, if an odd mix of endoparasite and predator largely locked to a narrow band of Humanoids, would give answers for basically all the properties.


When Asmodeus fell he likely took a layer of Celestia with him. It seems the kimd of thing likely to happen upon a whole bunch of archons turning evil. Akin to when one of the layers of Arcadia fell into mechanus when its inhabiyants ceased being good
This happening in one go is a pretty drastically unlikely event, which implies a layer of Celestia going through Arcadia, then Nirvana, then Acheron, before becoming a new layer of Hell. Which... Fits surprisingly well, as Avernus is a continuous bloody battlefield like most of Acheron, with any remnants of its time as a part of the Heavens lost to the constant blasting. Mount Celestia formerly having an actual base instead of sloping directly into the Silver Sea would also make it fit in noticeably better with the "adjacent" Planes of Arcadia and Bitopia, the lost layer being filled with "raw" Good to create the Silver Sea where it used to be more marshy.

---

As for my own, I go with Incarnum being spiritual "slag". For every Lemure, there's a little bit of Essentia that makes its way to Arboria, a little bit that floats around, bits and pieces that cycle into new souls getting a slight disposition to Good and Chaos from the act. The Silver Sea is filled by the doubts of those who's Alignment alone brought them to the Abyss, Carceri's walls are lined by the forsaken cruelties of Bytopian residents, Mechanus adopts the reason of Limbo petitioners, each Outer Plane fueled by what its opposite does not take. And a great deal becomes scattered to Astral winds, waiting to be grasped by all manner of things.

This also feeds into why there's such a bias towards Standard Humanoids. Petitioners are oddly finite in their power, suggesting a rather stark throughput limit on what Alignment brings. This results in a significantly stronger "counterweight" effect, as powerful champions in life find far more of their soul's raw power go to their opposition without specific deals to bring along the whole soul, and also means that innately powerful creatures need express interventions to get much more than a lowly Kobold upon death. That the Lower Planes do this on the regular is one of the big issues causing Celestials to keep the Blood War going.

[noob]

As for my own, I go with Incarnum being spiritual "slag". For every Lemure, there's a little bit of Essentia that makes its way to Arboria, a little bit that floats around, bits and pieces that cycle into new souls getting a slight disposition to Good and Chaos from the act. The Silver Sea is filled by the doubts of those who's Alignment alone brought them to the Abyss, Carceri's walls are lined by the forsaken cruelties of Bytopian residents, Mechanus adopts the reason of Limbo petitioners, each Outer Plane fueled by what its opposite does not take. And a great deal becomes scattered to Astral winds, waiting to be grasped by all manner of things.

This also feeds into why there's such a bias towards Standard Humanoids. Petitioners are oddly finite in their power, suggesting a rather stark throughput limit on what Alignment brings. This results in a significantly stronger "counterweight" effect, as powerful champions in life find far more of their soul's raw power go to their opposition without specific deals to bring along the whole soul, and also means that innately powerful creatures need express interventions to get much more than a lowly Kobold upon death. That the Lower Planes do this on the regular is one of the big issues causing Celestials to keep the Blood War going.

Does it means casting disintegrate on an outsider is like torturing incarnum and is evil like the use of necrocarnum?

[Bohandas]

Regarding the illithids' origin, ai think they're descended from far future githyanki

[Lvl45DM!]

Illithids were the last sentient species. In the twilight of the universe, the last world capable of life, the last sun setting, the last species decided screw all this entropy nonsense and flung themselves back in time.
Illithids are descendent of all the species, convergent evolution combined with the rigors of massive time travel.


Aboleths aren't as old or as badass as they think they are. They came from the Far Realm and lived in ponds of protoplasmic slime and could control the microscopic organisms that came about, maybe exert some minor influence over the first wriggling fish, but they never had a real empire ruling all enslaving beings, they just THINK they did. Flawless memories dont preclude self deception. Aboleths have risen to their current state of power by sheer bloodymindedness

[Morphic tide]

Does it means casting disintegrate on an outsider is like torturing incarnum and is evil like the use of necrocarnum?
Not any more than running a Lemur through a woodchipper. Probably less, even, since it's a very abrupt Transmute-to-dust effect. The whole subject of Transmuting Outsiders and Elementals is weird, given their lack of soul-body distinction, but since there's nothing noting it to be particularly wrong to Baleful Polymorph a Solar it doesn't seem to be the case that "ordinary" Transmutation of the Outsider's physical composition constitutes the sort of spiritual defilement that's on the short list of "No Questions Asked Straight Down Under" actions.

[noob]

Not any more than running a Lemur through a woodchipper. Probably less, even, since it's a very abrupt Transmute-to-dust effect. The whole subject of Transmuting Outsiders and Elementals is weird, given their lack of soul-body distinction, but since there's nothing noting it to be particularly wrong to Baleful Polymorph a Solar it doesn't seem to be the case that "ordinary" Transmutation of the Outsider's physical composition constitutes the sort of spiritual defilement that's on the short list of "No Questions Asked Straight Down Under" actions.

I was talking about the fluff of necrocarnum which was that it was incredibly evil because it caused intense suffering to the incarnum.
Also running a lemur through a woodchipper does look evil.

[Jay R]

Elves do not mature slower than humans. Just like most humans, they spend the first eight or so decades of life obsessed with sex, football, role-playing games, and/or politics.

The difference is that elven cultures believe that you're not really mature until you get past that stage.

[Morphic tide]

I was talking about the fluff of necrocarnum which was that it was incredibly evil because it caused intense suffering to the incarnum.
Disintegrate is a Transmutation, its function is very literally turn-to-dust. Doesn't have much capacity to inflict pain because it either turns something to dust or does not, so there's nothing there to feel pain. Partial disintegration may expose nerves in an exceptionally painful fashion, but this is no different from lopping an arm off with a sword. "Unnecessary suffering" as a benchmark for Evil is rather nonsensical with all the Bludgeoning damage, anyways. If repeated blunt impact until the subject dies of crushed organs or internal bleeding is not Evil, I seriously question how simple pain factors in at all.


Also running a lemur through a woodchipper does look evil.
For one, animal cruelty is seemingly irrelevant for Alignment, for another, I was referring to Lemure as in the Mindless Fiends. Left off the 'e' at the end.

[Runa_Dacino]

Healing spells have a Will save component.

Therefore, scars are universally healable. The reason someone cannot heal their scars is because their subconscious rolls to resist the healing spell, and most clerics do not force the issue.

Subconcious is controlled by the player, leaving whether a character is scarred, disfigured or mutilated up to their player.

ICly, however - it can be explained as:


Culture: Some people grew up in cultures that oppose the idea of treating scars or disfigurement. Even if consciously the character wants it gone, their entrenched beliefs give them difficulty. In order to heal their scars, these people must go through an ordeal of rejecting their old beliefs and culture and truly embracing who they are today.
Religion: While Sunites, Hanalites and Chaotic Good deities may have religions that say you should have ownership over your own bodies, lawful religions may dictate that you should accept the cards fate dealt you. For neutral ones, they may consider such superficial treatment as a waste of divine Power, and reject it. For characters with such faiths and scars, they need to find a way to reconcile their conscious discomfort with their beliefs, perhaps find a justification why removing scars actually fits their belief. The clerics may say it's OK, but the person themselves has to make this mental paradigm shift.
Trauma: The character earned that scar within an event that gave them lasting mental trauma - loss of a loved one, failure, the sort of thing. A sort of survivor's guilt perhaps, or simply "I associate this scar with this person I loved." For these people, to heal their scars they must overcome the trauma through either facing their demons (such as trying again and succeeding), or simply having a paradigm shift that their bodies need not be mutilated to remember their loved ones, to overcome their guilt.
General Identity: Some characters, not due to trauma, just simply how they perceive the world have incorporated their non-naturally healing injuries into their concept of Self. Healing scars for these people is most unlikely, but for these people their subconcious and ego are likely in good agreement. On the flipside, someone who has a very strong sense of Self (Chaotic characters in general, but also elves due to their Reverie) might be able to shrug off cultural, religious and trauma reasons for being unable to heal their scars, since scars infringe upon their concept of Self.



This interpretation/headcanon of "Do healing spells heal scars? Does Regenerate leave permanent damage when restoring a limb?" is inclusive for both those who want non-perfect healing, and those of us who prefer magic to enable people to take ownership over their physical forms (I may be biased towards CG!)

[Bohandas]

"Unnecessary suffering" as a benchmark for Evil is rather nonsensical with all the Bludgeoning damage, anyways. If repeated blunt impact until the subject dies of crushed organs or internal bleeding is not Evil, I seriously question how simple pain factors in at all.

I mean, there's a qualitative difference between clubbing someone to death normally and breaking them on the wheel

[LibraryOgre]

I mean, there's a qualitative difference between clubbing someone to death normally and breaking them on the wheel

Or "killing in self defense" v. "killed a man just to watch him die."

[KorvinStarmast]

Or "killing in self defense" v. "killed a man just to watch him die." In Reno. The party (me DM) kind of did the latter last night with a drow wizard they had captured.

[LibraryOgre]

Or "killing in self defense" v. "killed a man just to watch him die."


In Reno. The party (me DM) kind of did the latter last night with a drow wizard they had captured.

Look, don't be limited to just Reno. I've killed men just to watch them die lots of places.

[PhoenixPhyre]

Head Canon--

All spells and active magical effects (including magic item use) has ecological and metaphysical consequences beyond what's explicitly printed. If you're not in the Dark Sun setting, those effects mostly are minor and transitory. They get worse with volume and duration. A single guy casting fireball a few times and then moving on? Trivial. Sure, that little area is slightly attuned to elemental fire, but well within the normal variation and goes away within a few hours, maybe a day or so. An armageddon-style apocalyptic battle between armies of casters all spamming fire spells? Yeah, that region is going to be messed up beyond just the overt "blown up landscape/dead bodies" problems for a long time. Droughts, desertification, spontaneous wildfires, etc. You've pulled in crap-tons of fire energy and left it laying about the landscape. Similarly, a single use of create water (or similar) isn't an issue. But if you try to supply a town with a self-resetting trap of create water or Decanters of Endless Water...you're attuning that area to elemental water. Expect things to become more swampy, humid, and have spontaneous water weird effects. This can be "abused" to change climates, but it's unpredictable--you could get poisonous or salt water intrusion instead of fresh. Depending on the local circumstances.

Arcane magic is the most prone to this effect, since direct hacking bypasses all the normal safeguards. Druidic magic is the least prone to this, but even large-scale spells like plant growth (used in its fertility aspect) have effects--plant growth pulls fertility forward (effectively depleting the normal nutrients, etc). Sure, you double your crop this year. But the next 5 will have below-normal crops to compensate. So to really do it well, you'd have to rotate--have one field actively being used with plant growth and several fallow ones used for grazing. And most druids won't tolerate the extra land use enough to spend their spells on it. Which means that most nations don't have an agricultural revolution on the back of plant growth.

Undead and fiend-summoning are the worst, though. Summoning fiends actually aligns the area toward Evil in a measurable, significant way. Have all the good intentions you want, but areas that tolerate (or are forced to tolerate) rampant fiend summoning become evil over time. Attitudes change; self-justification becomes easier, etc. Undead are more destructive--they exist to destroy life. They are death, made flesh. Animated by spirits of entropy and decay. As such, their very presence eats away at the life and fertility of the area around them. A single skeleton is a trivial drain. But a drain. The longer it's there, the more can leak through spontaneously. And the less fertile the land becomes. Until, left alone long enough, the area becomes sterile, incapable of sustaining life. Even the rocks themselves start to break down--asymptotically, everything becomes dust and ash. A landscape devoid of anything useful. Bigger, smarter undead often end up trying (and failing) to sate their existential hunger by devouring people; they can hide it, but they need the life force of larger beings to sustain their own existence.

Why don't the PHB (etc) say these things? For two reasons
1. They're written by Wizards of the Coast, and we all know wizards don't care about the ecology whatsoever. Look at owlbears. No, not the individuals. Their existence. Proof enough. Not even blue, because true.
2. Adventurers are rarely in one area casting enough spells for it to matter. It's only when you get to the civilization-changing scale that things start being really apparent. A single teleport circle? Meh. A Tippyverse? Is going to have permanently weakened barriers between the Material and whatever plane is used to sidestep distance (probably the Ethereal? depends on edition). And all sorts of fun things will leak through.

[Bohandas]

Similarly, a single use of create water (or similar) isn't an issue. But if you try to supply a town with a self-resetting trap of create water or Decanters of Endless Water...you're attuning that area to elemental water. Expect things to become more swampy, humid, and have spontaneous water weird effects.

Supplying the town with decanters of endless water will do that by itself, even without having to weaken the boundry to the elemental plane of water. You're conjuring all this water up and (in the absence of something that banishes it back) it's gotta go somewhere.

[PhoenixPhyre]

Supplying the town with decanters of endless water will do that by itself, even without having to weaken the boundry to the elemental plane of water. You're conjuring all this water up and (in the absence of something that banishes it back) it's gotta go somewhere.

But that's much more predictable--you can dig channels/sewers/aqueducts or funnel the excess into large fields that can handle the pure volume of water (which, frankly, you should have already thought of, because of waste products if nothing else). The problem with the larger-scale effects is that they're not predictable either in location or timing. You might get underground erosion causing sinkholes, you might just get more rain (yay!), etc. Over a much wider, more random area.

Edit: The point being--D&D magic seems nice and controllable. Even mechanistic. Do thing, get result. Done. But that's just Wizardly delusion--everything has consequences. Not always bad consequences, but certainly consequences.

And it opens up things like "a culture that uses [Good] spells frequently will, in fact, become more Good." And vice versa. The point isn't to preach some pseduo-"green" message about man always making a mess of everything, it's to open up new vistas into worldbuilding that aren't simply "exploit effect for power" and express the mystery and wonder and unpredictability of meddling in cosmic forces.

[Satinavian]

Edit: The point being--D&D magic seems nice and controllable. Even mechanistic. Do thing, get result. Done. But that's just Wizardly delusion--everything has consequences. Not always bad consequences, but certainly consequences.
If that really is a thing, it soon will be a known thing and explored and used and people (especcially rulers) becoming more concerned with manipulating those large scale long lasting effects than with normal magic. And then you get stupid stuff like law forcing spellcasters to cast "protection from evil" and "protection from chaos" every day to make a nice, law abiding society etc.

[PhoenixPhyre]

If that really is a thing, it soon will be a known thing and explored and used and people (especcially rulers) becoming more concerned with manipulating those large scale long lasting effects than with normal magic. And then you get stupid stuff like law forcing spellcasters to cast "protection from evil" and "protection from chaos" every day to make a nice, law abiding society etc.

Only if the consequences are predictable and consistent. Magic is a squirrely thing--studying it means it studies you. And has a wicked sense of humor.

[KillianHawkeye]

I think the main issue with figuring out the long term effects of magic, at least in settings like the Forgotten Realms, is that every couple hundred years (or less) the whole setting gets turned upside down and a new deity is put in charge of how magic works and all the rules change.

[PhoenixPhyre]

I think the main issue with figuring out the long term effects of magic, at least in settings like the Forgotten Realms, is that every couple hundred years (or less) the whole setting gets turned upside down and a new deity is put in charge of how magic works and all the rules change.

One more reason not to use those settings. Number 1366347637864357 if my count isn't off #notblueiftrue

[Witty Username]

If that really is a thing, it soon will be a known thing and explored and used and people (especcially rulers) becoming more concerned with manipulating those large scale long lasting effects than with normal magic. And then you get stupid stuff like law forcing spellcasters to cast "protection from evil" and "protection from chaos" every day to make a nice, law abiding society etc.
Sounds like preservation and defilement in Dark Sun.

[No brains]

The lore is left vague and unsatisfying to deliberately draw the fire of prospective DM head canons.

Where is Gith?
Was Kurtulmak or the gnome gods the aggressor?
Just what is up with that Raven Queen?

Why don't you tell me?

[Bohandas]

I think it's vaguely implied that Gith is Vlaakith

[LibraryOgre]

I think it's vaguely implied that Gith is Vlaakith

Gith is just a title. The real Gith is... Nameless. :smallwink:

[KorvinStarmast]

Look, don't be limited to just Reno. I've killed men just to watch them die lots of places. OK, we'll broaden our horizons ... wait, isn't that how we get traveling murder hoboes? :smalleek:

Head Canon--

All spells and active magical effects (including magic item use) has ecological and metaphysical consequences beyond what's explicitly printed. -snip- Arcane magic is the most prone to this effect, since direct hacking bypasses all the normal safeguards. -snip- Druidic magic is the least prone to this, but even large-scale spells like plant growth (used in its fertility aspect) have effects--plant growth pulls fertility forward (effectively depleting the normal nutrients, etc). Sure, you double your crop this year. But the next 5 will have below-normal crops to compensate.
Yes, magic is both powerful and dangerous, in that it has side effects.

--snip the rest of supporting points, and agree --And all sorts of fun things will leak through.
Yes. That was something I used in my brother's campaign, and in my Salt Marsh campaign. Stuff kept leaking through, and the party had to to into The Void to seal the leaks. A murder hobo version of the boy with his finger in the dike.

The point being--D&D magic seems nice and controllable. Even mechanistic. Do thing, get result. Done. But that's just Wizardly delusion--everything has consequences. Not always bad consequences, but certainly consequences. Side effects, like acid rain...

and express the mystery and wonder and unpredictability of meddling in cosmic forces. What, it's a non linear effect? Arrrrrrrgghh! :smalleek: (reminds me of the very old joke about the monkey trying to put the plug back into the pig)

Magic is a squirrely thing--studying it means it studies you. And has a wicked sense of humor. That's very old school. +1

I think the main issue with figuring out the long term effects of magic, at least in settings like the Forgotten Realms, is that every couple hundred years (or less) the whole setting gets turned upside down and a new deity is put in charge of how magic works and all the rules change. Side effects with non linear magnitudes. :smallwink: (Or just achieving the threshold energy for the nuclear explosion analogy that is the various "magic changed" cataclysm as editions change)

Just what is up with that Raven Queen? She's emo, so she's never up, she's always down :smallyuk:

[Bohandas]

Nolzur's Marvelous Pigments are made at least partially out of coyote parts

[animorte]

Every kobold ever featured in one of my games (NPC, monster, or PC) knows or was somebody from Tucker’s. Though it doesn’t often come up.

[Archpaladin Zousha]

Because elves are big into agroforestry and sustainable stuff, they really REALLY don't like cattle, given the environmental destruction caused by both cattle and the humans who ranch them.

The most common herd animals found in elven settlements as a result are goats.

[noob]

Because elves are big into agroforestry and sustainable stuff, they really REALLY don't like cattle, given the environmental destruction caused by both cattle and the humans who ranch them.

The most common herd animals found in elven settlements as a result are goats.

What?
Did you never see a goat?
Goat are the destroyers of trees, ravagers of wild-lands.
They will make tons of efforts to seek each tree and try to eat them to death or destroy all their bark and reachable leaves resulting in them dying later.
I participated in making barriers around trees to protect them from goats and despite barriers, many of them still died to goats because they did everything to circumvent the barriers or push them in order to get close enough to the tree to eat its bark or its leaves.
They are a bad pick if you like trees.

[Spore]

Because elves are big into agroforestry and sustainable stuff, they really REALLY don't like cattle, given the environmental destruction caused by both cattle and the humans who ranch them.

The most common herd animals found in elven settlements as a result are goats.


What?
Did you never see a goat?
Goat are the destroyers of tree, ravagers of wild-lands.
They will make tons of efforts to seek each tree and try to eat them to death or destroy all their bark and reachable leaves resulting in them dying later.
I participated in making barriers around trees to protect them from goats and despite barriers, many of them still died to goats because they did everything to circumvent the barriers or push them in order to get close enough to the tree to eat its bark or its leaves.
They are the bad pick if you like trees.

Which is why I enjoy Elder Scrolls' Wood Elves. They just went: "screw it, we love trees and nature so we are EXCLUSIVELY eating meat to reduce those pesky leaf eating things." which is weird, twisted and illogical, but if we live in a world where a 3rd level cleric could theoretically feed dozens (or worse, the Tippyverse where Create Food "Traps" are a thing), I don't see carnivorous elves as the pinnacle of breaking immersion.

In connection to elves, I feel it is implied orcs in almost any setting are just a horrible accident or curse brought upon some noble and arrogant elves. While Faerun Orcs seem to be space invaders, there must be a reason for Gruumsh's hatred for Corellon's fluidity of form. I say they are elves who wanted to reenact Corellon's perfection, but failed. Either through a terrible curse, a backfiring infernal contract or simply hubris. The most ugly one became their god instead.

[Metastachydium]

What?
Did you never see a goat?
Goat are the destroyers of tree, ravagers of wild-lands.

Yup. Those ugly bastards are basically the herbivorous equivalents of feral/free-reanging cats: quadrupedal ecologic disasters that climb better than they have any right to.


Which is why I enjoy Elder Scrolls' Wood Elves. They just went: "screw it, we love trees and nature so we are EXCLUSIVELY eating meat to reduce those pesky leaf eating things." which is weird, twisted and illogical, but if we live in a world where a 3rd level cleric could theoretically feed dozens (or worse, the Tippyverse where Create Food "Traps" are a thing), I don't see carnivorous elves as the pinnacle of breaking immersion.

Oh yes! Bosmer are the bossmer! And what they do is entirely sustainable; they eat people too!

[Archpaladin Zousha]

What?
Did you never see a goat?
Goat are the destroyers of trees, ravagers of wild-lands.
They will make tons of efforts to seek each tree and try to eat them to death or destroy all their bark and reachable leaves resulting in them dying later.
I participated in making barriers around trees to protect them from goats and despite barriers, many of them still died to goats because they did everything to circumvent the barriers or push them in order to get close enough to the tree to eat its bark or its leaves.
They are a bad pick if you like trees.
The studies I looked at implied they were more environmentally friendly because they browse instead of graze the way cows do, meaning they don't tear out the roots of plants which contributes to stuff like soil erosion and nutrient depletion. :smallconfused:

[Morphic tide]

The studies I looked at implied they were more environmentally friendly because they browse instead of graze the way cows do, meaning they don't tear out the roots of plants which contributes to stuff like soil erosion and nutrient depletion. :smallconfused:
Any monocultural overpopulation is environmentally hazardous, especially when out of touch with the animals' original ecological niche. Most domesticated goats come from mountainous areas, so there's a whole bunch about low-lying forest flora they'll strip bare. Cattle ranching, meanwhile, has seen its largest scale implementations as just substituting a native large ruminate for oxen (because clearing a non-grassland to make pasture is time consuming), resulting in rather little ecological damage because everything the cattle are doing was already being done. Indeed, there's some details in the Great Plains where things got worse from the decline of ranching, because the cattle were the only thing filling the bison's former role, and the bison were not in any position to bounce back to resume it.

Ecological damage from livestock tends to be a matter of either shoving too many in too small an area, or deciding to clear forests for them. It is very difficult to clear D&D forests, and the dominant actual use demanding the felling of trees pre-industrially was basically just house frames and ships. While I cannot for the life of me recall the term, the largest supply of wood tended to be cultivated trees who's low-lying branches would be split and made to regrow repeatedly, giving a renewable supply for wicker-work that made up the far larger share. And since the demand for felling trees is stuff that is measured in decades, it's very easy for the elves to just sell their sustainably-grown trees as lumber, even before offering preservative measures to stretch the weathering losses out to centuries.

[Metastachydium]

The studies I looked at implied they were more environmentally friendly because they browse instead of graze the way cows do, meaning they don't tear out the roots of plants which contributes to stuff like soil erosion and nutrient depletion. :smallconfused:

Part of their appeal is that they are stupidly hardy and largely indiscriminate in their choices of food. They can reach pretty much anything they want (they can climb trees, fences, vertical rock faces – you name it) and go for the young shoots if available. They might leave the grass alone as long as they can locate some of their preferred prey, but they'll strip the shrubs and younger/smaller trees clean, leaves, buds and younger, softer branches included. They are pests.

[Kane0]

every couple hundred years (or less) the whole setting gets turned upside down and a new deity is put in charge of how magic works and all the rules change.

I suspect that would largely be because there is no handover documentation.

[NovenFromTheSun]

The fact that the Lower Planes are producing such an output that the Blood War is necessary to keep them under control is the result of the Nameless One’s first sin. That’s why he has to fight in the Blood War, the only way he can fix what he did is by going down and wrecking so much fiendish *** that the scales eventually balance again.

[Chauncymancer]

Any monocultural overpopulation is environmentally hazardous, especially when out of touch with the animals' original ecological niche. Most domesticated goats come from mountainous areas, so there's a whole bunch about low-lying forest flora they'll strip bare. Cattle ranching, meanwhile, has seen its largest scale implementations as just substituting a native large ruminate for oxen (because clearing a non-grassland to make pasture is time consuming), resulting in rather little ecological damage because everything the cattle are doing was already being done. Indeed, there's some details in the Great Plains where things got worse from the decline of ranching, because the cattle were the only thing filling the bison's former role, and the bison were not in any position to bounce back to resume it.

Ecological damage from livestock tends to be a matter of either shoving too many in too small an area, or deciding to clear forests for them. It is very difficult to clear D&D forests, and the dominant actual use demanding the felling of trees pre-industrially was basically just house frames and ships. While I cannot for the life of me recall the term, the largest supply of wood tended to be cultivated trees who's low-lying branches would be split and made to regrow repeatedly, giving a renewable supply for wicker-work that made up the far larger share. And since the demand for felling trees is stuff that is measured in decades, it's very easy for the elves to just sell their sustainably-grown trees as lumber, even before offering preservative measures to stretch the weathering losses out to centuries.
Coppicing is the word I believe

[Spore]

In my games all demiplanes of dread are connected and divided by the deadly mists of Ravenloft. Only the Vistani can pass them, but not because they are in league with the Dark Lords, but because they are their jailors. Torturing the Darklords instead of releasing them to their just afterlives is just preventing evil powers from gaining powerful souls. Things the Dark Powers want to for themselves.

In that vein there are several (neutral to evil) gods in other settings that directly benefit from that power and can grant their followers spells despite their worship being too little for true godhood.

[PhoenixPhyre]

One microfortnight (1e-6 of 14 days) is exactly 1.2096 seconds. Which means that really, the base "round length" for 3e+ D&D isn't 6 seconds, it's 5 microfortnights. 5 is better than 6, so I claim[1] that really the real unit system of D&D is the FFF unit system (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/FFF_system).

[1] without any real evidence, just whimsy.

[KorvinStarmast]

One microfortnight (1e-6 of 14 days) is exactly 1.2096 seconds. Which means that really, the base "round length" for 3e+ D&D isn't 6 seconds, it's 5 microfortnights. 5 is better than 6, so I claim[1] that really the real unit system of D&D is the FFF unit system (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/FFF_system).

[1] without any real evidence, just whimsy.

Why, because we have five digits on our hands? Why not use base 8, which is the same as base 10 if you are missing two fingers. :smallyuk:

[Bohandas]

All the different published versions of Castle Greyhawk/Castle Zagyg exist in the same place at the same time. Possibly through something to do with the plane of shadows; one of the versions had a very powerful illusionist* living in the lowest sub-basement.


*(like, more powerful a mage overall than Mordenkainen if I'm understanding 1e multiclassing correctly; he was a (generalist) magic user 23/Illusionist 27, whereas Mordenkainen was Magic User 29 )


Why, because we have five digits on our hands? Why not use base 8, which is the same as base 10 if you are missing two fingers. :smallyuk:

I mean, if we're going by hands we should be doing base 6. 1-2-3-4-5 and then the next hand is the sixes column

EDIT: I'd say base two, but some patterns of fingers up versus fingers down are very awkward to do. Also, some numbers (such as 4, 128, and 132) would involve having just the middle finger up on at least one hand

EDIT:
Though I do imagine learning to do wizard spells with somatic components involves learning to quickly do all 1024 patterns of fingers up versus fingers down

[KorvinStarmast]

I mean, if we're going by hands I was referencing a joke from Tom Lehrer's song "New Math" - it is on Youtube somewhere (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UIKGV2cTgqA).

[Zelphas]

Most Dwarves are teetotalers; they don't touch a drop of alcohol. The ones that do drink, the ones that are responsible for the widely-spread belief that all Dwarves are heavy drinkers, are the ones who venture above ground. Alcohol is their "medicine", the thing that they need to get around the horrifying fact that there is nothing above their heads but empty air, and there's a ball of fire in the sky way high up that just... hangs there, and burns you if you look at it. Non-Dwarves who visit Dwarven cities don't actually get into the cities themselves; they spend their time in the recovery/preparation wards for those who go Too Far Up... and therefore bring back even more stories about how all Dwarves are obsessed with alcohol and drink heavily at all hours of the day.

[noob]

Most Dwarves are teetotalers; they don't touch a drop of alcohol. The ones that do drink, the ones that are responsible for the widely-spread belief that all Dwarves are heavy drinkers, are the ones who venture above ground. Alcohol is their "medicine", the thing that they need to get around the horrifying fact that there is nothing above their heads but empty air, and there's a ball of fire in the sky way high up that just... hangs there, and burns you if you look at it. Non-Dwarves who visit Dwarven cities don't actually get into the cities themselves; they spend their time in the recovery/preparation wards for those who go Too Far Up... and therefore bring back even more stories about how all Dwarves are obsessed with alcohol and drink heavily at all hours of the day.

The phobia of empty air would make sense in dnd: there is too many flying creatures that can kill you from a distance.
I could see it evolved as an adaptation to a dangerous world.
Just like how humans have some degree of snake phobia by default due to snakes having been around for long.

[KorvinStarmast]

An idea that got stuck into my head by a nice lady at work:
Mummies are zombies from a different, more affluent, socio-economic origin. :smalleek:
And I can't help seeing in my mind's eye a little alligator embroidered onto the wrappings over the left side of a standard mummy's chest ... arrrrgggg! :smalleek:

[NovenFromTheSun]

The stuff that ghosts, spirits, outsiders and souls are made of and the stuff flesh and bone is made of aren’t that different. I could point to how ghostly creatures tend to just have resistance to physical attacks, but an even better example comes from the rutterkin and sibriex. They can turn a person into a manes, just like a chaotic evil soul becomes a manes when they go to the Abyss, but in their case everything suggest that this is a bodily transformation for their victim rather than a spiritual one in the later case. And yet the result is completely the same.

[No brains]

Asmodeus got into his position by representing the worst kind of evil: the necessary evil.

Everything Asmodeus does is ostensibly to a good end, but he has zero reservations about what it takes to get there. This is evidenced by hell often opposing evil either directly or by proxy, such through the Blood War, imprisoning Tiamat, or hurting mind flayers through empowering Githyanki and Duergar. By perpetuating the idea of evil as a means and not an end, he's able to expand the influence of evil through the repercussions of those means that mortals might not fully comprehend.

He also hates liches and other soul eating evils. Though this is out of a pragmatic concern, as a creature that promises its soul and then gets it devoured has in his eyes committed metaphysical credit fraud.

[Bohandas]

The stuff that ghosts, spirits, outsiders and souls are made of and the stuff flesh and bone is made of aren’t that different. I could point to how ghostly creatures tend to just have resistance to physical attacks, but an even better example comes from the rutterkin and sibriex. They can turn a person into a manes, just like a chaotic evil soul becomes a manes when they go to the Abyss\

Rutterkin? Are you sure you're not thinking of the nalfeshnees or molydeus?

[NovenFromTheSun]

Rutterkin? Are you sure you're not thinking of the nalfeshnees or molydeus?

I know rutterkin have an ability to turn people into manes, I’ll have to check the others.

[Kane0]

He also hates liches and other soul eating evils. Though this is out of a pragmatic concern, as a creature that promises its soul and then gets it devoured has in his eyes committed metaphysical credit fraud.

Ooh, now i'm imagining an Archdevil working with some inevitables on that front, collecting on debts owed by those that steal, entrap and/or devour souls

[KorvinStarmast]

Everything Asmodeus does is ostensibly to a good end, but he has zero reservations about what it takes to get there. ---snip---
He also hates liches and other soul eating evils. Though this is out of a pragmatic concern, as a creature that promises its soul and then gets it devoured has in his eyes committed metaphysical credit fraud. Now that's funny. Acererak's credit rating is in the tank.

[Starlit Dragon]

It's not too difficult for a mage to raise a few skeletons or zombies, powering and controlling them solely through their own energy. It's a useful trick, and there's nothing morally objectionable about it, besides being a bit icky.

But that takes energy and spell slots, and it's difficult to keep up for long. You can't really make armies of undead with that. But what you can do is force a soul back into their recently dead body and power it like that. That gives you undead minions that last until they're hacked into pieces, can be as intelligent as you want, and don't draw on your own energy at all. It also leaves the soul trapped and suffering until it's severed from the body with divine magic. That is why people don't like necromancers.

And the thing is, the souls aren't neccesarily freed when the undead are killed. Only divine magic or certain arcane spells can do that. Just hacking them apart leaves the soul still bound to it. That's why people really, really don't like necromancers.
_____
On an unrelated subject: once someone chipped a shard from the Spire at the heart of the Outlands, and made it into a sword. Unfortunately, it proved impossible to transport by any magical means. They say it's still stuck somewhere past the Gatetowns, surrounded by a field of anti-magic.

[Altheus]

You know how elves don't sleep, they just meditate, well they don't strictly speaking have to meditate and they can sleep just like anyone else. However, Elves are wildly emotional if they don't meditate, feeling everything so much more intently than everyone else. Means they become total vengance at the drop of a hat, fall in love with a moment's glance, completely unmanageable.

Thing is, when elves sleep they dream, and those dreams can influence people outside their own minds. With one or two sleeping elves people just get a few vivid dreams, all good fun, sometimes laid on at the right sort of parties. Get a lot of sleeping elves together and you get something quite different.

Ever hear of the wild hunt? When enough elves dream their minds produce the hunt, terrible riders who will seek all about for something to kill and will turn on the elves if they can't find anything else.

So, that's why elves meditate, keeps them calm and stops the wild hunt.

Then there's the renegade sleepers, gangs of elves, several dozen strong who rove around doing whatever they please, their emotions running wild. Bandits, heroes, whatever mood strikes them at the time, mad bastard fighters too, nothung quite like an elf who really wants you dead!

[Spore]

Now that's funny. Acererak's credit rating is in the tank.

It is also a gross waste of ressources. The Book of Vile Darkness shows that you can have souls suffer eternally to power your evil plans like a perpetuum mobile of debasedness. Instead you just destroy them for instant power. That's the kind of horrific thing an engineer would see if you sold a solar panel's electronics to pay for your next bunch of coal to heat your home.

[Bohandas]

The plane of Ravenloft is ruled over by the ancient baernaloth lords and is a sort of laboratory for studying applied evil

[NovenFromTheSun]

When a Dread Domain strays too far from the Dark Powers’ desires, too far for the subtle approach to get it back on track, they have one ace up their sleeves. Domain reset: roll back the domain to the day it first entered the Mist, usually with a few elements changed to fix the “bug” that necessitated the reset in the first place.

[thorr-kan]

When a Dread Domain strays too far from the Dark Powers’ desires, too far for the subtle approach to get it back on track, they have one ace up their sleeves. Domain reset: roll back the domain to the day it first entered the Mist, usually with a few elements changed to fix the “bug” that necessitated the reset in the first place.
With that in place, one wonders how it relates to Sithicus and Soth.

[NovenFromTheSun]

With that in place, one wonders how it relates to Sithicus and Soth.

That’s the guy who got kicked out because he stopped taking the bait right? He admittedly wasn’t on my mind when I came up with the idea, but I vaguely remember reading something that said that afterward he outright re-died a hero. So perhaps at some point he had a change of heart that couldn’t be “fixed”. I’m decently sure the Dark Powers avoid outright mind controlling Darklord candidates (because what would that prove?) so they had to leave him with that.

[thorr-kan]

That’s the guy who got kicked out because he stopped taking the bait right? He admittedly wasn’t on my mind when I came up with the idea, but I vaguely remember reading something that said that afterward he outright re-died a hero. So perhaps at some point he had a change of heart that couldn’t be “fixed”. I’m decently sure the Dark Powers avoid outright mind controlling Darklord candidates (because what would that prove?) so they had to leave him with that.
Exactly; he got sent back because he was boring. Though now I'll need to look up what happened to him POST-sent back.

It leaves the possibility that a Darklord can reform. It's terribly difficult, but Redemption is possible...

[Spore]

When a Dread Domain strays too far from the Dark Powers’ desires, too far for the subtle approach to get it back on track, they have one ace up their sleeves. Domain reset: roll back the domain to the day it first entered the Mist, usually with a few elements changed to fix the “bug” that necessitated the reset in the first place.

Opened a ticket where Strahd was not properly simping for a mortal girl's soul: fixed. :smallwink:

[Talakeal]

Exactly; he got sent back because he was boring. Though now I'll need to look up what happened to him POST-sent back.

He refused to serve Takhisis so she "cured" him of his curse and allowed him to die.

[thorr-kan]

He refused to serve Takhisis so she "cured" him of his curse and allowed him to die.
Yeah, that's what I read. I suppose at that point, Takhisis is just one more Dark Power.

[NovenFromTheSun]

Opened a ticket where Strahd was not properly simping for a mortal girl's soul: fixed. :smallwink:

They’re glad it happened once though, Strahd’s pipe organ cover of “Your Reality” went hard.

[Luccan]

There is a supernatural force, perhaps a god, of locksmithing and trapping. This is why special training requiring an entire character level is sometimes required to open locks and disable traps without setting them off; this entity has inspired locksmiths and trap makers to the point they can produce works far beyond medieval/Renaissance and sometimes even modern levels of craftsmanship and security

[Bohandas]

The spellplague didn't reconfigure the planes as such, Realmspace collapsed in on itself and took a bit of every plane it had a permanent portal to with it, which formed new planes in wherever it landed

[Rafaelfras]

The spellplague didn't reconfigure the planes as such, Realmspace collapsed in on itself and took a bit of every plane it had a permanent portal to with it, which formed new planes in wherever it landed
What spell plague?
It didn't happened and we don't talk about it

[Starlit Dragon]

Gemstone dragons are descendants of the first children of Io, before he was split and unmade.

[Bohandas]

For whatever reason, every wizard's spellbook is full of these (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sv-38lwV6vc) and that's why you can't just copy them normally

[Blackdrop]

Something that just popped into my head while playing CK, that I'll be adapting going forward:

In an effort to combat their implied depressed birth rates, dwarves and elves practice either polyamory or concubinage.

[LibraryOgre]

Something that just popped into my head while playing CK, that I'll be adapting going forward:

In an effort to combat their implied depressed birth rates, dwarves and elves practice either polyamory or concubinage.

Given that many times it's presented as being a dearth of female dwarves, you might see polyandrous relationships among dwarves; a single wife with several husbands, possibly brothers or cousins, so all the children are related more closely.

[Blackdrop]

Given that many times it's presented as being a dearth of female dwarves, you might see polyandrous relationships among dwarves; a single wife with several husbands, possibly brothers or cousins, so all the children are related more closely.

I'm not sure if I want to do it for dwarves, but making elven cultures in general polyandrous I think makes some interesting implications for the misandry present in the usual Drow depictions.

[Metastachydium]

Something that just popped into my head while playing CK, that I'll be adapting going forward:

In an effort to combat their implied depressed birth rates, dwarves and elves practice either polyamory or concubinage.


Given that many times it's presented as being a dearth of female dwarves, you might see polyandrous relationships among dwarves; a single wife with several husbands, possibly brothers or cousins, so all the children are related more closely.


I'm not sure if I want to do it for dwarves, but making elven cultures in general polyandrous I think makes some interesting implications for the misandry present in the usual Drow depictions.

While polyandry certainly makes sense for stereotypical dwarves, it doesn't do much, if anything, in terms of bolstering birth rates. It might help with keeping the genetic material comparatively diverse, on the other hand.

[Blackdrop]

While polyandry certainly makes sense for stereotypical dwarves, it doesn't do much, if anything, in terms of bolstering birth rates. It might help with keeping the genetic material comparatively diverse, on the other hand.

That could even make for an interesting concept, that there isn't anything wrong with the biology of the dwarves, but their stunted birth rate is a cultural issue that they're too stubborn or hidebound to change.

[Metastachydium]

That could even make for an interesting concept, that there isn't anything wrong with the biology of the dwarves, but their stunted birth rate is a cultural issue that they're too stubborn or hidebound to change.

"No, you are sabotaging your population growth! By the Iron Beard of the Ancestors: you'll get the hell out of here, lest you want your liver removed!"

[Millstone85]

The spellplague didn't reconfigure the planes as such, Realmspace collapsed in on itself and took a bit of every plane it had a permanent portal to with it, which formed new planes in wherever it landedI concur. Realmspace was connected to the Great Wheel through the World Tree, of which the roots descended into the Inner Planes and the branches stretched to the Outer Planes. When the spellplague occurred, the World Tree withered, collapsed inward, and dislodged various locations from their planes, leaving them adrift in either the Elemental Chaos or the Astral Sea.

[KorvinStarmast]

The Rod of Seven parts can be assembled in different orders, and its powers change depending on the order of assembly.

[LibraryOgre]

The Rod of Seven parts can be assembled in different orders, and its powers change depending on the order of assembly.

Like at least one version of Voltron.

[Bohandas]

I'm currently leaning towards the idea of the species languages - ie. dwarvish, elvish, etc. - consisting mostly of hardwired calls built into the species by their creators

[Morphic tide]

I'm currently leaning towards the idea of the species languages - ie. dwarvish, elvish, etc. - consisting mostly of hardwired calls built into the species by their creators

Much more plausible to be "rooted" in them like how birdsong has a "base" instinctive pattern "fleshed out" by learning rather than directly using wholly instinctual calls, if one wishes to mix creationism with natural language development. Especially on the Chaotic side of things, where artistic expression tends to drive strongly toward stuff like the verbing of nouns, as seen with the massive escalation of such on the Internet.

[Bohandas]

Yeah, different groups would probably have different words for things that were outside of the base vocabulary

Speaking of words, a second headcanon is I think "plane" could be short for "3-hyperplane"

[LibraryOgre]

Much more plausible to be "rooted" in them like how birdsong has a "base" instinctive pattern "fleshed out" by learning rather than directly using wholly instinctual calls, if one wishes to mix creationism with natural language development. Especially on the Chaotic side of things, where artistic expression tends to drive strongly toward stuff like the verbing of nouns, as seen with the massive escalation of such on the Internet.

I lean towards "These are the languages their gods speak to them in"; not everyone hears it, but enough do that it creates a fairly regular language, plus additions to local vocabulary.

[Luccan]

I think we're under the time limit. If not someone should start a new thread. Anyway: combining Gnomes and Trolls (somehow, probably via magic) still results in Gnolls like it did back in early D&D, but inexplicably it always results in the Hyena-headed, quasi-demonic kind of gnoll

[LibraryOgre]

I think we're under the time limit.

We are.

[KillianHawkeye]

combining Gnomes and Trolls (somehow, probably via magic) still results in Gnolls like it did back in early D&D

Wait, is this part actually true? Is that where gnolls come from??? :smallconfused:

[LibraryOgre]

Wait, is this part actually true? Is that where gnolls come from??? :smallconfused:

Per the Rules Cyclopedia: "Gnolls are rumored to be the result of a magical combination of a gnome and a troll by an evil magic-user."

No idea, man. There's also the Thoul, who looks like a hobgoblin, paralyzes like a ghoul, and regenerates like a troll.

[Luccan]

Per the Rules Cyclopedia: "Gnolls are rumored to be the result of a magical combination of a gnome and a troll by an evil magic-user."

No idea, man. There's also the Thoul, who looks like a hobgoblin, paralyzes like a ghoul, and regenerates like a troll.

I think the Thoul was supposed to be a trap monster though:
"you see what appears to be four hobgoblins"

"There's seven of us plus our men-at-arms. Lets charge them!"

*Three rounds later*

"You're a ****, Gary"

Whereas I think Gnolls were a joke:

"What is it it?"

*Wide smile* "Its a gnoll"

"Is... is a gnoll what I think it is?"

[thorr-kan]

Thouls were a typo in the fifth printing of OD&D. TSR sure picked it up and ran with it pretty quick, though. Always liked that critter.

[KillianHawkeye]

Why were there so many more "two creatures combined into one" back in the olden editions? I wish they'd kept doing that! :smallsmile:

[Batcathat]

Why were there so many more "two creatures combined into one" back in the olden editions? I wish they'd kept doing that! :smallsmile:

My head canon is that combining different creatures used to be a very common kink uhm, hobby among wizards. :smalltongue:

[animorte]

My head canon is that combining different creatures used to be a very common kink uhm, hobby among wizards. :smalltongue:
Flavor text on Vizzerdrix:

"A bored wizard once created a vizzerdrix out of a bunny and a piranha. He never made that mistake again.

[Kane0]

Why were there so many more "two creatures combined into one" back in the olden editions? I wish they'd kept doing that! :smallsmile:

My favourite is the sea lion

[KillianHawkeye]

My favourite is the sea lion

Mine is the duckbunny. :smallsmile:

[KorvinStarmast]

Mine is the duckbunny. :smallsmile: Owlbear seems to be where it started ...

[Bohandas]

Orcs sound kind of British and Yugoloths sound kind of Bostonian due to a tendency of the orcs to use the word "smashing" to mean "wonderful" and a tendency of the yugoloths to use the word "wicked" to mean "awesome" and as an intensifier. And these are the most literal translations of the corresponding words in their respective languages.

[No brains]

The difference between fey magic and divine magic is that divine magic is fey magic that took the time to grow up. If a fey being can abandon its petulance, it becomes divine. This is why unicorns are celestial instead of fey. Of course, this is as rare as humans superseding their desires and achieving enlightenment.

[Marcloure]

I'm currently leaning towards the idea of the species languages - ie. dwarvish, elvish, etc. - consisting mostly of hardwired calls built into the species by their creators

In D&D 4e (and maybe in other editions), species languages come from how the species understood the universal language of the gods when they first spoke to them.

[Bohandas]

I am somewhat partial to the idea of Sigil being a flat/clifford torus

[oudeis]

Druids can use steel armor and weapons if they personally forge them out of bog or Telluric iron.

(Meta-headcanon: the origin of the ban on metal armor was due in part to the fact that as residents of the industrial Upper Midwest, Gygax et al had seen firsthand the environmental devastation caused by iron mining and steel mills.)

Werewolves aren't actually evil, they are just victims of a propaganda campaign by Big Livestock.

Zombies groan and limp because they are cramping up from dehydration.

[LibraryOgre]

Zombies groan and limp because they are cramping up from dehydration.

Zombism as rabies?

[Spore]

I am somewhat partial to the idea of Sigil being a flat/clifford torus

Screw two or even threedimensional shapes. Maybe Sigil is a four dimensional shape? A klein bottle?

[Bad Wolf]

I have a new headcanon that epic level wizards tend to go a little loopy from ultimate magical power, which is why they think owlbears and whatnot are a great idea.

[NovenFromTheSun]

One of the stipulations of the Pact Primeval is that Baator can’t send Hellfire Engines to the material plane to bulldozer a few towns and lemure-ize their inhabitants souls regardless of those people’s alignment or lack of pacts. Now, if a mortal army decides invading Baator is a good idea on the other hand….


Opened a ticket where Strahd was not properly simping for a mortal girl's soul: fixed. :smallwink:

I’ve actually been thinking of this for a while and I have one for the vampire himself. Underneath the matter of Tatyana, even underneath Sergei retaining his youth and innocence Strahd lost in the war, Strahd’s hatred of Sergei stems from one main source.

Strahd blames Sergei for their mother’s death. And with that in view, anyone coupling with Sergei would provoke an “absolutely not!” response in Strahd.

[Morphic tide]

One of the stipulations of the Pact Primeval is that Baator can’t send Hellfire Engines to the material plane to bulldozer a few towns and lemure-ize their inhabitants souls regardless of those people’s alignment or lack of pacts. Now, if a mortal army decides invading Baator is a good idea on the other hand….
Given the Pact Primeval is the "constitution" establishing Heaven/Hell relations and the Good/Evil divide, I imagine it's a more general forbiddance of such "conscription" as a whole, with the Pacts being the chief work-around. The mirror for Celestials beholden to it would be not being allowed to deploy the likes of Redeemeries (https://forums.giantitp.com/showthread.php?410846). I would not be surprised in the slightest if there exists a strain of Formian or Beastlands resident quietly getting up to such shenanigans, if in a less painful way due to not being obligatorily sadistic.

[Bad Wolf]

One of the stipulations of the Pact Primeval is that Baator can’t send Hellfire Engines to the material plane to bulldozer a few towns and lemure-ize their inhabitants souls regardless of those people’s alignment or lack of pacts.





Interestingly enough, this is pretty much canon.



Some were captured on raiding parties to other planes; others are the souls of mortals slain in Baator and somehow trapped there. Because they do not rightfully belong to him, Dispater can’t turn them into lemures or wring divine energy from them, but he can and does hold them for ransom or exchange.

[Bohandas]

The solar deities work in a way that is, in a way whose details I cannot pin down exactly because I don't know enough about business, analogous to the business models of the phone company, the electric company, and the internet service providers and so forth. I feel that if I had a better handle on how all these competing companies connect you to the same power grid, the same phone network, the same internet, etc I might be able to explain how there are multiple unaffiliated but equally valid gods of the same sun.

[Luccan]

The solar deities work in a way that is, in a way whose details I cannot pin down exactly because I don't know enough about business, analogous to the business models of the phone company, the electric company, and the internet service providers and so forth. I feel that if I had a better handle on how all these competing companies connect you to the same power grid, the same phone network, the same internet, etc I might be able to explain how there are multiple unaffiliated but equally valid gods of the same sun.

There's at least 3 gods of "magic" or "nature" or "deceit" in every setting, I don't see what's so special about the sun, it's not even a vague concept

Honestly, I rarely think of D&D sun gods as being in direct control of the actual sun (even though that's how it works in a lot of myths about sun gods), so I don't think it even occurred to me to question the number of them that exist

[Bohandas]

There's at least 3 gods of "magic" or "nature" or "deceit" in every setting, I don't see what's so special about the sun, it's not even a vague concept

Well there's different forests and different lies but only one sun. Well, except in that one crystal sphere where there's a sun for every alignment.

[Millstone85]

Honestly, I rarely think of D&D sun gods as being in direct control of the actual sun (even though that's how it works in a lot of myths about sun gods), so I don't think it even occurred to me to question the number of them that existEver since I read the creation myth of Realmspace, I have been imagining Amaunator as actually being its sun.

Indeed, the myth goes:

Selûne and Shar are all the light and darkness in Realmspace.
They create Toril and other worlds, which together are Chauntea.
Chauntea demands warmth to nurture life. Selûne says yes, Shar no.
Selûne reaches to the Plane of Fire and gives Realmspace a sun.
Further battle between Selûne and Shar results in the Weave/Mystril.

In step 4, Amaunator could be a massive fire elemental that was summoned to warm Realmspace.

As such, he wouldn't need followers to be, pun intended, powerful beyond belief. However, all he could do with his non-divine abilities is:

Expand and burn the whole neighborhood.
Return home and leave the worlds to freeze.
Stay where he is and watch the merry-go-round.

So he would generally prefer being able to influence mortals through his clerics.

The rest of Toril's sun gods wouldn't be as literal. Lathander, for example, would only bring the dawn in a metaphorical sense, by encouraging people to follow ideals of renewal and seizing the day.

[Spore]

Thinking about it, it just dawned on me that Chauntea plays a big role in Faerun, but it should be by far bigger. Her role should be at least as big as Freya from norse mythology. This leads to the following canon for me, since a god's power directly results from the number of followers.

The rarity of earth and nature gods being popular in cities and settlements with larger administrative bodies is not due to a lack of faith in the deity in a feudalistic setting. It is to limit the power of said deities' clerics and druids, so the ruling class has the upper hand. Faith in gods of order and law, of good and sun is encouraged, faith in earth and bounty gods and goddesses is not banned, but laughed about for being savage, gaunt or simplistic. If it were any other way, druids of more radical sects of environmentalists would crush cities with huge rituals and reestablish nature in their place.

In a fair system the gods of sun, nature, sea and probably conflict or war would reign supreme. A god that encompasses altruism and loving thy neighbor with a close second (because evil people in Faerun still want to be loved and love themselves, of course some writing is just moustached BBEGs which is fine but not believable.)

[Millstone85]

If it were any other way, druids of more radical sects of environmentalists would crush cities with huge rituals and reestablish nature in their place.I like your idea but I also think that Chauntea would be the nature deity least affected by this policy. Surprisingly for the original Mother Earth Toril, she is now mainly associated with agriculture and even "crib, hearth and home" (5e SCAG p27). Untamed wilderness, and pursuits like the razing of settlements, are the domain of Silvanus.

[Bohandas]

[COLOR="#0000FF"]Honestly, I rarely think of D&D sun gods as being in direct control of the actual sun (even though that's how it works in a lot of myths about sun gods), so I don't think it even occurred to me to question the number of them that exist

What would indirect control look like? (In the context of a god who isn't a god of clouds or darkness that is; I don't think I've seen any official sun gods that control those). Indirect control doesn't make sense.

Nor does regional control, since it's the one sun for the whole world. (edit: and nor is the world lit by just one particular region of the sun, although small gods of each solar granule would be an interesting take)

And it's not something that you teach either. A forest god or a god of magic could teach you the ways of the forest or of magic, but there's not much to learn about the sun in the context of a D&D fantasy setting; I've never seen or heard of a temple with a Hertzsprung–Russell diagram painted on the wall. Nor does any official magic seem to draw energy from the sun per se; you won't find Superman or Starkiller Base in D&D.

At best they could be either a protector of the sun or a god of light with an overly grandiose title. And prottectors of the sun usually are seperate from THE sun god, and presuppose and the existence of a counterpart god who presents a credible danger to the sun. And in any case most of the sun gods aren;t presented as either of these.

[Rockphed]

Elves cannot tell humans apart. They would confuse a young Macaulay Culkin and Idris Elba in Thor. They would confuse Lizzo and Mr Rogers. Humans age too quickly and have too similar of skin tones (seriously, just shades of brown? What are you, dirt elves?) for elves to register the differences. Elves have every hue of skin imaginable (red for fire elves, yellow for sun elves, orange for gem elves, green for tree elves, blue for sea elves, purple for night elves). Elves maintain the same face for centuries.

Along with this, all elves can pull razors, combs, hairbrushes, and other hygiene products out of hammerspace. Despite quite a few having dual use as weapons or escape implements, no elf will ever use them to try to escape since then they might not have them when they need to look fresh. The only way to get a disheveled looking elf is to tie them hand and foot and post a guard. Even then they might manage to freshen up when the guard has their back turned for a moment.

Elves have names like the dogs in Bluey. They are very confused that has mans give their dogs elf names.

[Metastachydium]

Along with this, all elves can pull razors

I tend to agree with all the rest, but… Razors? What do they do with razors? Everyone knows that Elves are completely hairless. Even that long stuff on their heads is really just capillaries in a keratinous shell used for thermoregulation (alongside the ears, naturally), because (as everyone knows) Elves don't sweat.

[Rockphed]

I tend to agree with all the rest, but… Razors? What do they do with razors? Everyone knows that Elves are completely hairless. Even that long stuff on their heads is really just capillaries in a keratinous shell used for thermoregulation (alongside the ears, naturally), because (as everyone knows) Elves don't sweat.

I can't decide if I like this one or not. Part of me wants elves to have the same basic biology as humans. Part of me want to have elves have a reason for their aloof and condescending attitude.

[Metastachydium]

I can't decide if I like this one or not. Part of me wants elves to have the same basic biology as humans. Part of me want to have elves have a reason for their aloof and condescending attitude.

Your Elves have been SWEATING this whole time?? (More seriously, I think that ship might have sailed (he-he) when someone decided these pointy-eared freaks don't need to sleep and can stay young for longer than any vertebrate organism is known to, like, live in real life.)

[Rockphed]

Your Elves have been SWEATING this whole time?? (More seriously, I think that ship might have sailed (he-he) when someone decided these pointy-eared freaks don't need to sleep and can stay young for longer than any vertebrate organism is known to, like, live in real life.)

Elven childhood is about 100 years long, which is significantly less than the ~500 years greenland sharks live.

And elves don't sweat because they don't engage in strenuous activity when it is hot. Note how they tend to party at night in deep woods by cool streams.

[Metastachydium]

Elven childhood is about 100 years long, which is significantly less than the ~500 years greenland sharks live.

I said young and I totally misremembered the figures (sorry 'bout that), but [checks, this time] 175 years before hitting middle age, 263 years of not-old and up to 750 years spent alive still doesn't scream "human biology" to me.


And elves don't sweat because they don't engage in strenuous activity when it is hot. Note how they tend to party at night in deep woods by cool streams.

Note to self: Elven parties must be lame.

[Rockphed]

Note to self: Elven parties must be lame.

They spend 20 seconds being totally awesome and then 5 minutes watching other people be awesome before repeating. Or they throw parties in magical freezers.

[Metastachydium]

Or they throw parties in magical freezers.

Now, that's a mental image I certainly do like.

[Bohandas]

The baatezu and tanar'ri are umtimately on borrowed time (on a cosmic scale at any rate). The Law of Threes dictates that they eventually be replaced by other fiends that will either reign permanently or eventually cycle back into the obryiths and baatorans

[Millstone85]

The baatezu and tanar'ri are umtimately on borrowed time (on a cosmic scale at any rate). The Law of Threes dictates that they eventually be replaced by other fiends that will either reign permanently or eventually cycle back into the obryiths and baatoransZargon the Returner, being aware of this, is looking for the one who will dethrone Asmodeus and create the third race of LE exemplars, so Zargon can then retake the throne from that one and recreate the Baatorians.

[Spore]

They spend 20 seconds being totally awesome and then 5 minutes watching other people be awesome before repeating. Or they throw parties in magical freezers.

Maybe all elves radiate excess heat towards the fey realm powering its lush forests and jungles. Also I could see a Satyr selling "elf sweat" like "gamer girl bath water".

[Rockphed]

Also I could see a Satyr selling "elf sweat" like "gamer girl bath water".

I think you have the direction of that transaction backwards.

[Doctor Witch]

Stinking Cloud is considered an uncouth spell as in order to cast it, one must first eat the material component. Then the verbal component is "Pull my finger" and the somatic component is doing that. The cloud then emanates from the caster backside.

Despite this, or perhaps because of, it remains a hugely popular spell.

[Spriteless]

I think the evil Yuan-ti gods started as gods of the Lizardfolk. But Lizardfold have alien minds, and don't worship with the fervor humans do, so those gods transform humans into their favored forms. Perhaps it started when several different tribes of nomads teamed up against a greater threat. After victory celebration had different peoples sharing stories about gods. But as addictive human idolatry corrupts the snake gods, they pay it back 1000 fold corrupting their worshipers.

But Lizardfolk never stopped low key praying to emulate cool hunting snakes.

[KorvinStarmast]

Every portable hole comes from the Sea of Holes. This means that every so often a blue meanie, one of the Beatles, or Nowhere Man[1] will pop out of it when you lay it flat on the floor.
The prototype portable hole was folded up and put into Ringo Starr's pocket. He then said
"I've got a hole in me pocket" (https://youtu.be/1HoE24OlBsM)

Jeremy Hillary Boob, PhD (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jeremy_Hillary_Boob)

[animorte]

Every portable hole comes from the Sea of Holes. This means that every so often a blue meanie, one of the Beatles, or Nowhere Man[1] will pop out of it when you lay it flat on the floor.
The prototype portable hole was folded up and put into Ringo Starr's pocket. He then said

Jeremy Hillary Boob, PhD (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jeremy_Hillary_Boob)
Can't express how much I appreciate this.

[KorvinStarmast]

Can't express how much I appreciate this. I wish I could prove this, but I doubt I can.
I have a vague memory that some years ago someone from the early gang (Jim Ward, maybe) had mentioned that linkage between portable holes, the hole in Ringo's pocket and the sea of holes.

[Kriegspiel]

Githyanki are not a propogating species.

The reason their dress, weapons & armor are ancient in style and appearance is the same that they themselves look ancient and dessicated.

They are not the descendents of the slave armies bred by the Mind Flayers millenia ago. They are the remnants of those armies

The Githyanki who withdrew to the Astral plane after their uprising are all that remain. That is the reason for their eternal guerilla war against the Mind Flayers....once the they are gone, their cause is lost.

All they have left is taking is the Mind Flayers with them.

You see me now, a veteran
Of a thousand psychic wars
I've been living on the edge so long
Where the winds of limbo roar

[Bohandas]

What would indirect control look like? (In the context of a god who isn't a god of clouds or darkness that is; I don't think I've seen any official sun gods that control those). Indirect control doesn't make sense.

Nor does regional control, since it's the one sun for the whole world. (edit: and nor is the world lit by just one particular region of the sun, although small gods of each solar granule would be an interesting take)

And it's not something that you teach either. A forest god or a god of magic could teach you the ways of the forest or of magic, but there's not much to learn about the sun in the context of a D&D fantasy setting; I've never seen or heard of a temple with a Hertzsprung–Russell diagram painted on the wall. Nor does any official magic seem to draw energy from the sun per se; you won't find Superman or Starkiller Base in D&D.

At best they could be either a protector of the sun or a god of light with an overly grandiose title.

It recently occurred to me that they wouldn't necessarily have to be a god specifically of light. You could have like a god of warmth, and a god or making the plants grow, and a god of keeping vampires away, and a god of subnburn and skin cancer, etc, but AFAIK none of the official settings divide the sun gods up this way

[Metastachydium]

Githyanki are not a propogating species.

The reason their dress, weapons & armor are ancient in style and appearance is the same that they themselves look ancient and dessicated.

They are not the descendents of the slave armies bred by the Mind Flayers millenia ago. They are the remnants of those armies

The Githyanki who withdrew to the Astral plane after their uprising are all that remain. That is the reason for their eternal guerilla war against the Mind Flayers....once the they are gone, their cause is lost.

All they have left is taking is the Mind Flayers with them.

You see me now, a veteran
Of a thousand psychic wars
I've been living on the edge so long
Where the winds of limbo roar


They must be really good at not levelling up, then!

[thorr-kan]

They must be really good at not levelling up, then!
Can't level up; queen will eat me.

Quick, craft magic items!

[Luccan]

Can't level up; queen will eat me.

Quick, craft magic items!

No one was happier for the change to 3e than Githyanki

[Spore]

They must be really good at not levelling up, then!


Can't level up; queen will eat me.

Quick, craft magic items!

Maybe there was an unmentioned event ala "Spellplague" that just drained everyone's level. And since the Gith don't age, we can assume the Astral Plane has no flow of time, meaning their entire existence is withing one singular spec of time, all parallel in stasis related to realtime.

No time? No levelup.

[oudeis]

Wooden stakes affect vampires because they are both composed of dead matter that once was living. The heart is still the locus of power to undead, and the stake disrupts or dissipates the flow of energy that animates them. This explains why metal weapons alone are incapable of inflicting Final Death (it is also worth noting that the presence of metal in the impaling object, such as a steel point on an arrow, nullifies the disruptive effect). Some scholars have speculated that the wood must be of equal or greater age to the vampire to be effective, but these conjectures are based on fragmentary accounts that have passed through numerous sources, languages, and even eras. Given the rarity of vampires and the dire consequences of failure, few have been willing to test such notions as whether green wood would suffice for newly-risen spawn. There have also been reports of vampire hunters using weapons made from antler, horn, bone, teeth, claws, and even seashells and coral. A legendary mariner and undead slayer of the Great Southern Archipelago is said to have finished his foes with a spear made from the bill of an immense swordfish. Note: petrified wood (if in game) may retain its effectiveness depending on the world, or might even be required to defeat Antediluvian-age vampires...


Adventurers become more powerful by killing because they absorb the life force of the defeated, like the Immortals in 'Highlander'. This ability is incredibly rare, and even in a population of millions only a few hundred indivduals may exist. It is not known whether this is a power bestowed by by supranatural entities, the alignment of cosmic forces, or if Adventurers, like Immortals, are a distinct strain or even sub-species of their race.


Sigil isn't a torus, it's a Mobius strip. It both rotates around The Spire and traverses its length randomly, both in direction and distance, but no one has been able to measure or even prove these motions occur. The twist or orientation of the plane of the city also changes in a kind of precessional wave: areas that once faced inward to the rest of the city will turn to face orthogonally or to the Outer Planes. The direction, speed, frequency and magnitude of these waves may or may not be random. While the frequent change in local perspective makes city living entertaining, many feel that the increased occurrence of Planar incursions that come with the view of the Outer Planes make it of questionable property value.


Dark Sun, like Gamma World, is set in the aftermath of a catastrophic conflict between superpowers, with magical forces of Global magnitude taking the place of Nuclear, Biological, and Chemical weapons. It is not- repeat NOT- the result of a single human-supremacist ruler and his goon squad. The global devastation and concomitant mutations and mutant powers are due to the commingled effects of the unimaginable forces that were unleashed, not because of Buford the Bugbear Buster, Tristan the Troll Triturator, and Dwayne the Dwarf Dwowner (he had a speech impediment- don't make fun).


Bulettes are the larval stage of the Tarrasque


Archdevils such as Asmodeus are unique individuals with proper names. What we think of as the names of Demon Lords are actually titles claimed by whichever demon is strong enough to take it, as Roman emperors assumed the name Caesar upon taking the throne. Demogorgon is dead, long live Demogorgon.


Wish is not a spell that gives its caster the personal ability to warp reality, nor is it a service that comparatively minor beings such as Monster Manual Djinni can provide. Whether invoked directly by a wizard or indirectly through an intermediary, wishes are appeals to entities or forces on the order of deities with world-shaping and even cosmic levels of power. Sorry, but reading spellbooks, lost scrolls, the tomes of ancient sages past, or the Wizard's manual- even the Appendices- isn't going to make you capable of magic of that magnitude.

[Witty Username]

I like your idea but I also think that Chauntea would be the nature deity least affected by this policy. Surprisingly for the original Mother Earth Toril, she is now mainly associated with agriculture and even "crib, hearth and home" (5e SCAG p27). Untamed wilderness, and pursuits like the razing of settlements, are the domain of Silvanus.

Not to mention shadow druids are already a thing, the Forgotten Realms (or at least the Sword Coast) is a pretty conflict filled place, even on the best of days. Baldur's Gate is on top of a hell gate, Amm is on and off at war with all its neighbors, druid war with civilization and eachother on disputes of doctrine.
And whatever Thay is doing these days, their leadership seems to have swum off the deep end going off the movie.
--
I realize I may have needed to question this one more, but I awhile ago accepted as fact that Amanatour and Lathandar are the same god but altered by the passage of time. (Different personalities same deity)
And a 4e bit of lore I rather like was Amanatour being subsumed by Lathandar as Lathandar accepted he is not perfect and must take the time to improve where Amanatour has too great an ego to acknowledge this.

[Spore]

Wish is not a spell that gives its caster the personal ability to warp reality, nor is it a service that comparatively minor beings such as Monster Manual Djinni can provide. Whether invoked directly by a wizard or indirectly through an intermediary, wishes are appeals to entities or forces on the order of deities with world-shaping and even cosmic levels of power. Sorry, but reading spellbooks, lost scrolls, the tomes of ancient sages past, or the Wizard's manual- even the Appendices- isn't going to make you capable of magic of that magnitude.


Fully agree here. For one D&D severely mishandles the mysticism of geniekind by making them so well known instead of creatures without statblocks that grant their arcane magical powers to those they wish to torture, trick or bless.

And yes, wish as a 9th level spell when you can contact other planes (that may drive you mad) far earlier than 9th level, when you can flick at a djinn on 13th level onwards and it dies a horrible death? Yea, 9th level spells are grasping the infinite. Eldritch horrors and unfathomable creatures beyond time and space (dungeon masters?).

[KorvinStarmast]

Adventurers become more powerful by killing because they absorb the life force of the defeated, like the Immortals in 'Highlander'. This ability is incredibly rare, and even in a population of millions only a few hundred indivduals may exist. It is not known whether this is a power bestowed by by supranatural entities, the alignment of cosmic forces, or if Adventurers, like Immortals, are a distinct strain or even sub-species of their race. Only fits if everyone who is an adventurer is a human (kind of like CoC).
But a neat idea.


Dark Sun, like Gamma World, is set in the aftermath of a catastrophic conflict between superpowers, with magical forces of Global magnitude taking the place of Nuclear, Biological, and Chemical weapons. It is not- repeat NOT- the result of a single human-supremacist ruler and his goon squad. The global devastation and concomitant mutations and mutant powers are due to the commingled effects of the unimaginable forces that were unleashed, not because of Buford the Bugbear Buster, Tristan the Troll Triturator, and Dwayne the Dwarf Dwowner (he had a speech impediment- don't make fun).

I use a similar explanation for the Rain of Colorless Fire that made the western part of Greyhawk's world into a desert/sea of dust.

Bulettes are the larval stage of the Tarrasque
That doesn't scan. A bulette is a mutant giant armadillo hopped up on crystal meth.

Archdevils such as Asmodeus are unique individuals with proper names. What we think of as the names of Demon Lords are actually titles claimed by whichever demon is strong enough to take it, as Roman emperors assumed the name Caesar upon taking the throne. Demogorgon is dead, long live Demogorgon.
Interesting take, but I go back to Demagorgon's origin (in D&D) in eldritch wizardry; he and Orcus have proper names, like your Asmodeus example; the various other demons were Types I through VI. So I can't buy this one.

Wish is not a spell that gives its caster the personal ability to warp reality, nor is it a service that comparatively minor beings such as Monster Manual Djinni can provide. Whether invoked directly by a wizard or indirectly through an intermediary, wishes are appeals to entities or forces on the order of deities with world-shaping and even cosmic levels of power. Sorry, but reading spellbooks, lost scrolls, the tomes of ancient sages past, or the Wizard's manual- even the Appendices- isn't going to make you capable of magic of that magnitude.
Yes.

Fully agree here. For one D&D severely mishandles the mysticism of geniekind by making them so well known instead of creatures without statblocks that grant their arcane magical powers to those they wish to torture, trick or bless. That's a fair point. But they used to be able to grant a wish. (If we go back to the original game).

And yes, wish as a 9th level spell when you can contact other planes (that may drive you mad) far earlier than 9th level, when you can flick at a djinn on 13th level onwards and it dies a horrible death? Yea, 9th level spells are grasping the infinite. Eldritch horrors and unfathomable creatures beyond time and space (dungeon masters?). Limited Wish (from AD&D 1e was I think an attempt to scale wish back a bit ... the implementation as a warlock feature at Tier 3 is ... OK, I guess.

[D&D_Fan]

Kuo-Toa minds give rise to gods with their collective belief, much faster than any other race. What might take hundreds of thousands of mortal worshippers, kuo-toa could do with a few dozen devout worshippers. Kuo-Toa clerics are basically using the collective directed psionic potential of their race as the source of their divine magic.

But very few kuo-toa ever awaken that potential in their own minds. And I think it's because of the Mind Flayers. What if the kuo-toa were a powerful ancient race of truly potent psions, but the mind flayers managed to lock away that potential into their minds, driving them mad? The Mind Flayers clearly never anticipated that the kuo-toa would be able to access a spark of that power through devout belief, they abandoned the kuo-toa because they were not useful as slaves, too unstable.

It might sound far-fetched, until you consider one thing. Their name. "Kuo-Toa," what does it mean? Original. Masters.

So yeah, the kuo-toa didn't used to be like this. They used to be a truly powerful empire (not one without enemies, mind you, even before the mind flayers, they still hated sea elves and humans in ancient times) But it's because of the Mind Flayers that they have degenerated into primitive cultists. The pre-mind-flayer kuo-toa were probably also less gross-looking, since they've also just generally devolved and inbred a lot since.

But I think a psionically awakened kuo-toa, such as one trapped in stasis from before the mind-flayers, would be a truly freaky entity for a party to encounter.

[Bohandas]

Kuo-Toa minds give rise to gods with their collective belief, much faster than any other race. What might take hundreds of thousands of mortal worshippers, kuo-toa could do with a few dozen devout worshippers.

So sort og like Banjo

https://www.giantitp.com/comics/oots0080.html

[Morphic tide]

Wish is not a spell that gives its caster the personal ability to warp reality, nor is it a service that comparatively minor beings such as Monster Manual Djinni can provide. Whether invoked directly by a wizard or indirectly through an intermediary, wishes are appeals to entities or forces on the order of deities with world-shaping and even cosmic levels of power. Sorry, but reading spellbooks, lost scrolls, the tomes of ancient sages past, or the Wizard's manual- even the Appendices- isn't going to make you capable of magic of that magnitude.

Given that other 9th-level spells do stuff like create Demiplanes, acquire incredibly accurate knowledge of proximate threats for at least three hours making it wholly impossible to surprise the caster, duplicate 8th-level spells via tapping the Plane of Shadow to imitate your actions, warp the flow of time to an apparent standstill, and create an astral duplicate of yourself and 9+ friends to eradicate risk against anyone without an EXTREMELY limited list of countermeasures, the constraints of Wish as freeform reality warping fit pretty well. Very importantly, it's always been a ridiculous guzzler of a spell, with the original Greyhawk version burning the caster out for 2-8 days, in which one could usually accomplish more by use of a larger volume of less extreme magic. And this makes Rings of Three Wishes a very strange IOU.


Kuo-Toa minds give rise to gods with their collective belief, much faster than any other race. What might take hundreds of thousands of mortal worshippers, kuo-toa could do with a few dozen devout worshippers. Kuo-Toa clerics are basically using the collective directed psionic potential of their race as the source of their divine magic.

But very few kuo-toa ever awaken that potential in their own minds. And I think it's because of the Mind Flayers. What if the kuo-toa were a powerful ancient race of truly potent psions, but the mind flayers managed to lock away that potential into their minds, driving them mad? The Mind Flayers clearly never anticipated that the kuo-toa would be able to access a spark of that power through devout belief, they abandoned the kuo-toa because they were not useful as slaves, too unstable.
This is very exactly what the Ardent class was made to represent, oddly enough, so non-maddened (or non-feral, as the case may be) Kuo-Toa could well be a PP-engine of a Psionic society primed to abuse converted Spellpool rules, the usual Ardent jank, and Metaconcert.

[KorvinStarmast]

But I think a psionically awakened kuo-toa, such as one trapped in stasis from before the mind-flayers, would be a truly freaky entity for a party to encounter. Might be a great basis for an adventure.

[hewhosaysfish]

Some scholars have speculated that the wood must be of equal or greater age to the vampire to be effective, but these conjectures are based on fragmentary accounts that have passed through numerous sources, languages, and even eras. Given the rarity of vampires and the dire consequences of failure, few have been willing to test such notions as whether green wood would suffice for newly-risen spawn... Note: petrified wood (if in game) may retain its effectiveness depending on the world, or might even be required to defeat Antediluvian-age vampires...


So an elder vampire would want to:
aquire antique furniture and burn it, so that it can't be carved into stakes by plucky adventurers
create and circulate fake (or rather, misdated) antiques (possibly replacements of ones they've burned), so that would-be vampire-hunters arm themselves with ineffective stakes
fake being a younger vampire, to likewise encourage people to bring the wrong stake


Those are some interesting quirks to work with.

[glass]

My main D&D (and adjacent game) headcanon is that as far as possible everything I have played or run happened in the same continuity. Obviously there are some edge cases where things have to be broad brush - I have played Night March of Kalkamedes once and run it twice, but it is not my headcanon that he went on his march three times (he went once, and the details are vague enough to cover any and all of those sessions).

[Batcathat]

So an elder vampire would want to:
aquire antique furniture and burn it, so that it can't be carved into stakes by plucky adventurers
create and circulate fake (or rather, misdated) antiques (possibly replacements of ones they've burned), so that would-be vampire-hunters arm themselves with ineffective stakes
fake being a younger vampire, to likewise encourage people to bring the wrong stake


Those are some interesting quirks to work with.

Clearly this guy (https://www.smithsonianmag.com/smart-news/how-one-man-accidentally-killed-the-oldest-tree-ever-125764872/) is a really old and really paranoid vampire. Killing the oldest tree trying to date it? Suuuure you did.

[Spore]

My main D&D (and adjacent game) headcanon is that as far as possible everything I have played or run happened in the same continuity. Obviously there are some edge cases where things have to be broad brush - I have played Night March of Kalkamedes once and run it twice, but it is not my headcanon that he went on his march three times (he went once, and the details are vague enough to cover any and all of those sessions).

If you go multiverse theory (not the D&D cosmos, but actual parallel worlds), you can imagine all adventures of all player characters of anyone who ever played D&D being canon. Including video games. Including obscure fanfics.

[KorvinStarmast]

If you go multiverse theory (not the D&D cosmos, but actual parallel worlds), you can imagine all adventures of all player characters of anyone who ever played D&D being canon. Including video games. Including obscure fanfics. This way lies madness, which ends up with a lot of Kuo Toa and Gibbering Mouthers, I think.

[Rockphed]

This way lies madness, which ends up with a lot of Kuo Toa and Gibbering Mouthers, I think.

Where do you think Kuo-toa and gibbering mouthers come from?

[KillianHawkeye]

In 3.5 ed D&D, a vampire's damage reduction is only bypassed by silver. So my headcanon has always been that the whole "stab them with a sharp piece of wood" thing has always just been some sort of misinformation campaign carried out by vampires to get people to attack them with ineffectual weapons.

[Luccan]

In 3.5 ed D&D, a vampire's damage reduction is only bypassed by silver. So my headcanon has always been that the whole "stab them with a sharp piece of wood" thing has always just been some sort of misinformation campaign carried out by vampires to get people to attack them with ineffectual weapons.

But you can still instantly kill one with a stake in 3.5. Actually 3.5 goes out of its way to include many of the classic vampire killing and repelling methods in a way it doesn't for most other monsters

[KillianHawkeye]

But you can still instantly kill one with a stake in 3.5.

Yeah, that's what makes it headcanon and not actual canon..... :smallconfused::smallsigh:

[Luccan]

Yeah, that's what makes it headcanon and not actual canon..... :smallconfused::smallsigh:

I suppose it would be. I suppose it's a personal bias towards headcanons. I tend to reject contradiction with the actual text. That said, looking at the MM as often containing "common lore" that might not be accurate could be a fun way to mess with expectations. Everybody at the table can use meta knowledge on monsters, with the in-game logic being you've heard about all these beasts in stories. But then, as has been suggested, it turns out the smart monsters all spread a bunch of lies. Or even failing that, the monsters know their own weaknesses and adapted.

Maybe vampires can't be staked or maybe they all just start getting magic armor embedded in their chests. And it could spawn various adventures as well. Vampires can't cross running water, so they start damming up rivers in their hunting grounds, killing off the mortals even faster than a few vampire attacks since they lost their natural access to water. Or maybe the myths started because it was a specific vampire's weakness. Sir Ivan was allergic to garlic, the Terror of Vladsburg was scared of deep water, people thought Count Dracula was a vampire, but he wasn't, and every mortal dies when you stab them in the heart, chop their head off, and set them on fire

[oudeis]

Adventurers become more powerful by killing because they absorb the life force of the defeated, like the Immortals in 'Highlander'.

Only fits if everyone who is an adventurer is a human (kind of like CoC).
But a neat idea.

Do you mean because of some sort of intra-species limitation? I always envisioned it as a kind of vitalist omnivorousness.



Bulettes are the larval stage of the Tarrasque

That doesn't scan. A bulette is a mutant giant armadillo hopped up on crystal meth.
That's what the authorities want you to think. No one knows for sure, but the prevailing (secret) school of thought is that the metamorphosis to Tarrasque is trigged when the bulette reaches a certain mass or 'energy' reserve. Bulettes are dangerous enough in their current form that the last thing anyone wants is swarms of half-assed 'heroes' to go questing for glory only to end up fueling the transformation they sought to prevent. Irony is all well and good in literature, but not when you are trying to prevent the rise of a civilization-ending (devouring) threat.



Archdevils such as Asmodeus are unique individuals with proper names. What we think of as the names of Demon Lords are actually titles claimed by whichever demon is strong enough to take it, as Roman emperors assumed the name Caesar upon taking the throne. Demogorgon is dead, long live Demogorgon.


Interesting take, but I go back to Demagorgon's origin (in D&D) in eldritch wizardry; he and Orcus have proper names, like your Asmodeus example; the various other demons were Types I through VI. So I can't buy this one.

I didn't express this as precisely/fully as I wanted: I was thinking that when a Demon Lord is slain, the challenger ends up taking both the name and the form of the fallen ruler. As far as outsiders are aware of circumstances, it's yet another of the unending series of failed revolts that end with the death of the would-be usurper at the hands/tentacles of the eternal Lords of the Abyss. Now that I've written this out, though, I'm wondering if this kind of inalterable morphism (morphisticism?) would be better suited for the adamantine rigidity of the Hells instead.

[Bohandas]

I didn't express this as precisely/fully as I wanted: I was thinking that when a Demon Lord is slain, the challenger ends up taking both the name and the form of the fallen ruler. As far as outsiders are aware of circumstances, it's yet another of the unending series of failed revolts that end with the death of the would-be usurper at the hands/tentacles of the eternal Lords of the Abyss. Now that I've written this out, though, I'm wondering if this kind of inalterable morphism (morphisticism?) would be better suited for the adamantine rigidity of the Hells instead.

IIRC it's explicitly a part of it. I'm pretty sure Fiendish Codex 2 had something about The Dark Eight generals giving up their previous names and identities upon joining the group and taking on the name and identity of the general they are replacing

[John Campbell]

The verbal component for feather fall is a Wilhelm Scream.

[Bohandas]

The verbal component for feather fall is a Wilhelm Scream.

Not a Goofy yell?

[Rockphed]

Not a Goofy yell?

I am fairly certain the somatic component is holding up a sign saying "help".

[Spore]

But you can still instantly kill one with a stake in 3.5. Actually 3.5 goes out of its way to include many of the classic vampire killing and repelling methods in a way it doesn't for most other monsters

I enjoy D&D vampires a lot, and I kind of like the explanation World of Darkness/Vampire the Masquerade gives for these. Vampires are deeply mystical creatures but short of sunlight killing them, one needs various methods to release them from their curse. Which it actually must be for all the edgy and dark vampire characters to work properly. Not a gift of immortality, but a curse.

It is hugely because they believe in it. Seeing how D&D magic works it must be how spells and weaponry interacts with high fantasy monsters. Why do we have to pay x amount of gold to resurrect a dead person? If the person is truly pious, is that not enough? Why the frankly huge amount of cash, it feels like buying your way out of the afterlife. Why is it bat guano for Fireball? Why do vampires and werewolves hate silver?

It is not because of the intrinsic value given, it is because common and personal belief gives the materials worth and properties. Suddenly, silver is for purity (because impure silver quickly dulls). Suddenly, a stake through the heart is lethal, not because of the stake, but because you plant a living material through the corrupted and dead center of a cursed creature, releasing their curse. Why garlic? Because it is antibiotic, it helps against vermin such as insects and as such is thought beneficially. It only "works" when the vampire believes in it. Same with holy symbols, same with flowing water.

I treat my vampire villains like deeply depressed and mentally ill people. Not to villify disability, but because their curse can make them sympathetic. Strahd for example resists physical damage and necrotic. His regeneration sets out if he is hit with radiant damage because he is a cursed individual. His other weaknesses are:

Vampire Weaknesses.

Strahd has the following flaws:


Forbiddance. He can't enter a residence without an invitation from one of the occupants.

Strahd is a lord, and thus would never break the hospitality of anyone he cares for. He claims nobility and lordship over Barovia, he would not simply cast aside this due to his pride. Maybe another simile for his depression is that no one will visit him in his castle (he even extends an invitation to the group), lover or otherwise.


Harmed by Running Water. He takes 20 acid damage if he ends his turn in running water.

Strahd was a warlord as a human. For one streams of water carry strategic value, sometimes enough that they decide border; and his prison realm is lined with waterways. He hates the constant reminder he is trapped. Besides drowning oneself is another finale for depression.


Stake to the Heart. If a piercing weapon made of wood is driven into his heart while he is incapacitated in his coffin, he is paralyzed until the stake is removed.

Originally meant to be a piece of the cross, a reminder of his fall from faith and into darkness, and he does not instantly die like others, but usually coffins are made of wood, too. Maybe it is a reminder that he is truly dead, and just animated by dark magic.


Sunlight Hypersensitivity. While in sunlight, Strahd takes 20 radiant damage at the start of his turn, and he has disadvantage on attack rolls and ability checks.

The campaign setting specifies that the last bastion of hope WAS the Morninglord (basically Lathander/Pelor by another name). He has since crushed the opposition and even cast his realm into eternal twilight by day, marking a limitation of divine powers. I say he is simply stunned anyone is able to still connect to their deity this way.



There are gothic horror explanation to this which lie in personal pride making vulnerabilities personal imperfections, but there are also heroic fantasy explanations that boil down to "the heroes are just so damn awesome the vampire ceases in their presence. Rule of cool-ing the vampires demise as "their reference game is on point we let them have this". (Otherwise Bruce Campbell would have been murdered by going toe to toe with a zombie horde with a dumb small shotgun.

[Bohandas]

I've been thinking, what if Common is universal because it's a debased pidgin of the magically effective languages (ie. truespeech, dark speech, words of creation, etc.). These are tangible things that are discoverable and so it stands to reason they'd be found in many different places and from there might make their way into local tongues, (albeit not pronounced correctly enough to have magical effect) and so from that you would get lots of different languages that aren't necessarily the same language, but are derived from the same root languages and therefore mutually intelligible to a degree

[thorr-kan]

I've been thinking, what if Common is universal because it's a debased pidgin of the magically effective languages (ie. truespeech, dark speech, words of creation, etc.). These are tangible things that are discoverable and so it stands to reason they'd be found in many different places and from there might make their way into local tongues, (albeit not pronounced correctly enough to have magical effect) and so from that you would get lots of different languages that aren't necessarily the same language, but are derived from the same root languages and therefore mutually intelligible to a degree
That's a clever idea with interesting implications. In this headspace, Undercommon would be another debased pidgin, possibly completely unrelated to Common.

Going back to 2E, the Language Primeval from the College of Wizardry supplement could be another source.

[Luccan]

I would assume Undercommon is some combination of Elvish and Dwarvish (owing to the Drow and Duergar seeming to be the largest civilizations) with maybe a few others mixed in, not actually being s similar language to surface Common. That's assuming your subterranean world is anything like the Underdark, of course. I think I'm at the point that unless I'm doing deep worldbuilding, I'm comfortable saying Common is just the word for what could easily be called Human. Makes about as much sense as having a single form of Elvish.

[Morphic tide]

I would assume Undercommon is some combination of Elvish and Dwarvish (owing to the Drow and Duergar seeming to be the largest civilizations) with maybe a few others mixed in, not actually being s similar language to surface Common. That's assuming your subterranean world is anything like the Underdark, of course. I think I'm at the point that unless I'm doing deep worldbuilding, I'm comfortable saying Common is just the word for what could easily be called Human. Makes about as much sense as having a single form of Elvish.
In modern D&D, you have near-universal literacy as well as a wide variety of far longer lived creatures who'd keep "archaic" linguistics "in circulation". Add in liturgical value as most races have Gods interested in them in particular to have a use-case where the point of comparison is Ecclesiastical Latin and you don't need to touch any of the esoteric factors to have things tend to stay mutually intelligible for well over a thousand years.

[oudeis]

The Sword of Kas isn't actually an evil superweapon: Kas himself was neither a vampire or evil warlord or even a servant to Vecna, but was in fact Vecna's sworn nemesis and the greatest hero of that epoch of the world. Such was the Lich's power and determination to corrupt and pervert the truth, however, that he was able to forever blacken his enemy's name. As with all matters pertaining to the arch-lich, his actions were driven by both uncontrollable malice and utterly emotionless calculation. By tainting the legacy of the one who overthrew him, Vecna ensured that only the evil and the power-hungry would seek after the weapon. Many aspiring tyrants have attempted to wield the Sword over the ages, only to find themselves consumed by the divine fire of perhaps the most powerful Holy Avenger ever to descend to the earth. A portion of Kas' spirit still lingers in the mortal plane, unbeknownst to even Vecna, hoping and striving to guide the right champion to take up his weapon and the struggle against the Master of Lies.

Magic weapons and items can't be used to attack their creator in all but extraordinary circumstances. The enchantments will fail or the item will simply not allow itself to be wielded.

Defiling hallowed ground or the remains of those interred in same is tantamount to an initiation of hostilities with the protecting diety. The severity of the response will be in proportion to the magnitude of the transgression, ranging from perhaps a minor curse for something like stealing treasure from a new grave, to the divine equivalent of a major military retaliation or even a full declaration of war for pillaging the tomb of a high priest or raising an army of undead from its followers.

In the same vein, Raise Dead is expected to be used on followers of the granting diety or those of its allied gods. Using the spell to raise someone not in those categories becomes more difficult the further removed they are from the diety's alignment or purposes (required level or DC, at GM's discretion). This can also have repercussions to the cleric, depending on the god and the recipient. Resurrection has even greater strictures placed upon it. Merely attempting to resurrect any but the most faithful will trigger immediate communion with one of the most powerful servants of your diety or perhaps the god itself. Failure to justify the use of the spell can result in immediate catastrophic consequences for the cleric and even his immediate vicinity, should the diety's wrath be sufficiently aroused.

Warlock Patrons are actually established dieties who need to empower contractors for clandestine and black ops while maintaining plausible deniability. The 'Arch-Fey' who approached you with the deal that was too good to be true? *cough Corellon cough*. Does anyone really believe that 'The Fiend' is acting without explicit sanction from the Diabolic Bureaucracy, if it isn't the Big A himself? And what self-respecting God of Knowledge wouldn't have a think-tank aspect with the public face of a 'Great Old One'?

The most magically advanced societies have the arcane equivalent of Cyberspace: the gifted can use crystal balls to scry upon or project to an analogue or aspect of the Astral plane.

Ioun stones assume different powers depending on how you pronounce the name.

Stone and Iron golems don't exist. Tales of such come from adventurers who got their asses kicked by armored Flesh or Clay golems created by wizards who got tired of constantly having to rebuild their constructs.

Brass and Bronze dragons are descended from long-ago Copper dragons who mated with the now-extinct Zinc and Tin dragons. This is best not discussed in the presence of these bloodlines, and besides, who among us doesn't have an embarrasing memory of a bad hookup?

Green dragons are unripe Red dragons.

[Bohandas]

The comedy version of Castle Greyhawk is a massive shadow illusion cast on top of the real castle by the epic level illusionist from the end of the adventure

[threefivearchve]

My D&D headcanon is that Zarus is Pelor's evil brother. Don't know why. Always felt like Pelor was the closest there was to a human god, despite there being some in Races of Destiny.

[Beelzebub1111]

I had a heretical cult in one of my games that believed that Heironeous and Hexor were not merely brothers, but the same divine entity. Two necessary halves of the same whole.

[KorvinStarmast]

In the same vein, Raise Dead is expected to be used on followers of the granting diety or those of its allied gods. Using the spell to raise someone not in those categories becomes more difficult the further removed they are from the diety's alignment or purposes (required level or DC, at GM's discretion). This can also have repercussions to the cleric, depending on the god and the recipient. A number of DMs over the years that I have played with have levied such restrictions/constraints.

Brass and Bronze dragons are descended from long-ago Copper dragons who mated with the now-extinct Zinc and Tin dragons. This is best not discussed in the presence of these bloodlines, and besides, who among us doesn't have an embarrassing memory of a bad hookup? Plaid dragons, on the other hand, are comfortable with their mixed heritage and are the arch nemisis of fashionistas the world over. (the Mysterious Plaid Dragon/Dragons are a feature of my instance of the World of Greyhawk. The party has met one (adult) once).
Green dragons are unripe Red dragons. If you are not careful who you say that around, it could be trouble. :smallcool:


I had a heretical cult in one of my games that believed that Heironeous and Hexor were not merely brothers, but the same divine entity. Two necessary halves of the same whole. Janus?

[Beelzebub1111]

Janus?
To be specific, the cult believed their methods required one another to function. Justice cannot be delivered without some sort of control, Valor and Heroism nessecitate a framework of war and conflict to perform. An open palm and a closed fist are both the same hand. And the conflict between them is a metaphorical struggle to balance the dichotomy within the same deity.

[Bohandas]

Iggwilv is a distant descendant of Orcus (from his mortal life). This rectifies Iuz's background as the son of Grazzt with his other background as a descendant of Orcus

[RedMage125]

Iggwilv is a distant descendant of Orcus (from his mortal life). This rectifies Iuz's background as the son of Grazzt with his other background as a descendant of Orcus

I'm in shock. I actually never knew Orcus used to be mortal. I looked it up, but it mostly seems to be FR lore that says that. But Iggwilv is Greyhawk. Is it true across the settings?

[Unoriginal]

I'm in shock. I actually never knew Orcus used to be mortal. I looked it up, but it mostly seems to be FR lore that says that. But Iggwilv is Greyhawk. Is it true across the settings?

Most Demon Princes used to be mortals, for a very loose definition of "used to be".

How direct the link between mortal and Demon depends on the edition. In 5e, chaotic evil souls are absorbed by the Abyss, which then produces Demons. Orcus is not described as one of the Demon Princes who are exceptions to the usual, so we can assume it is how he came to be Orcus.

(In any case, 5e Orcus would be sincerely disgusted by the suggestion he ever participated in the creation of something living, and the identity of the mortal who got digested until the Demon who eventually became Orcus is likely not very relevant).

[Millstone85]

In 5e, chaotic evil souls are absorbed by the Abyss, which then produces Demons. Orcus is not described as one of the Demon Princes who are exceptions to the usual, so we can assume it is how he came to be Orcus.That's not my reading of the 5e lore.


The Abyss creates demons as extensions of itself, spontaneously forming fiends out of filth and carnage. Some are unique monstrosities, while others represent uniform strains virtually identical to each other. Other demons (such as manes) are created from mortal souls shunned or cursed by the gods, or which are otherwise trapped in the Abyss.To me, it sounds like a large part of the demonic population does not come from mortal souls.

[Unoriginal]

That's not my reading of the 5e lore.

To me, it sounds like a large part of the demonic population does not come from mortal souls.

You are 100% correct, but I did say 'for a very loose definition of "used to be".'

Demons dying in the Abyss are reabsorbed by it, and it'll eventually spawn new Demons, so it can be said that all Demons are made from Soulyent Green, just more or less processed.

There's also at least one confirmed case of a mortal exteriorizing some of the chaotic evil in their soul to not have to deal with it, and that part of themselves turning into a Drecht as a result

The MM text also says:



A demon might spawn as a manes, then become a dretch, and eventually transform to a vrock after untold time spent fighting and surviving in the Abyss. Such elevations are rare, however, for most demons are destroyed before they attain significant power. The greatest of those that do survive make up the ranks of the demon lords that threaten to tear the Abyss apart with their endless warring.

Meaning that most Demon Lords got their might from being the rare Demons able to ascend again and again, rather than just emerging from the Abyss that strong.


I admit my explanation was either too unclear or overstating the case, though.

[oudeis]

Merchants and smiths don't actually keep magic items in stock. They have a supply of high-quality mundane pieces on display and the ability to imbue them, provided the proper magic source and incantation are used: after the adventurer provides the (surreptitiously tested) coin for their purchase, the vendor will insist that they give that ring/sword/armor "just a quick touch-up" before it leaves the shop; in reality however, the courtesy pass with the 'cleaning fluid' (the energizing infusion) and the tuneless ditty they sing as they work (the binding charm) are the final step in the enchantment process. This makes robbery virtually pointless, and since the reagent and the charm are specific to each item and property, even torture isn't a reliable means of insuring an easy magic haul. Additionally, most magic retailers are actually fronts for arcane crafting syndicates or powerful wizards who don't want hordes of unwashed vagabonds pestering them for 'Like, a totally badass pigsticker, dude!', so murder hobos would be well-advised to keep their customary anti-social tendencies in check.

Warlock pacts are contracts that can be traded by the sponsoring entity, or even usurped by a rival or greater power, depending on how the politics of the particular realm work. You drank the trothwine with The Dancer upon The Starlight Meads, that is true, but they offended the Vortex Incarnadine, and since the Fey are too preoccupied with their own affairs to be drawn into another pointless brush war with the Fiends, your pact was bundled up with a sheaf of others and gifted as a peace offering. Meet the New Boss, etc.

On some worlds, Godzilla, Skynet, and The Man in Black are Patrons. Trying to pact with Galactus is considered a bad idea, however.

Dragonborn isn't a race, it's a class, landing somewhere between Monk and Sorceror in its mechanics.

Chaotic Spelljammers are known to occasionally load their vessels with great quantities of astral ice and go joyriding past primitive worlds. When they reach the correct distance, they start releasing the ice, creating a new comet in the sky and terrifying the unsuspecting denizens below.

Power Word: Ni!

One of the most common misconceptions about Dragons is that the size of the hoard is commensurate with the power of the monster. In fact, a Dragon's growth and abilities are limited by the amount of treasure they accumulate: they are literally unable to get stronger without increasing their wealth. No non-dragon understands the exact mechanism behind this, though numerous theories have been proposed over the ages. Some sages think that gross weight is the determining factor, others claim that volume is the critical measurement, while more mercantile-minded scholars argue that a dragon's size and ability is dependent on the market value of their treasure-bed. The artificial scarcity created by removing mass amounts of coinage from circulation inflates both their wealth and their girth. These conjectures rapidly get weighed down by calculations of the interrelationships between local exchange rates, spot prices, shipping and storage costs, and the effects of national monetary policies and international trade treaties, so proponents of this position are rarely able to find an audience willing to sit still long enough to hear them out.

[Batcathat]

Merchants and smiths don't actually keep magic items in stock. They have a supply of high-quality mundane pieces on display and the ability to imbue them, provided the proper magic source and incantation are used: after the adventurer provides the (surreptitiously tested) coin for their purchase, the vendor will insist that they give that ring/sword/armor "just a quick touch-up" before it leaves the shop; in reality however, the courtesy pass with the 'cleaning fluid' (actually a potent magical infusion) or whatever and the tuneless ditty they sing as they work are the final step in the enchantment process. This makes robbery virtually pointless, and since the reagent and the charm are specific to each item and property, even torture isn't a reliable means of insuring an easy magic haul. Additionally, most magic retailers are actually fronts for arcane crafting syndicates or powerful wizards who don't want hordes of unwashed vagabonds pestering them for 'Like, a totally badass pigsticker, dude!', so murder hobos would be well-advised to keep their customary anti-social tendencies in check.

Wouldn't keeping this a secret mean it doesn't do much to prevent robbery (since the robbers won't know it was for nothing until they've already done it)? I suppose it might prevent repeat robberies, but it might be better to put up big sign saying "MAGIC ITEMS WON'T WORK UNTIL ACTIVATED" or whatever.

[oudeis]

@Batcathat: sorry, was changing some wording when you quoted me


Once word spreads that the last crew that tried to pull a snatch-and-grab at Weyland's World of Weapons not only ended up with a bunch of glamored-up munitions-grade kit instead of the high-ticket items they thought they got, but were mysteriously vaporized by lightning right in the middle of the Mudlark's Market without a cloud in the sky, people will get the message.

[AMFV]

Elves and Dwarves don't actually mature that much more slowly than humans.

Elves being chaotic don't actually have formal schooling for their children and they don't normally allow Elvish children out into the world until they have sufficient knowledge. This is usually around a hundred years of age. Since Elves have such a long life there's no reason for Elves to be worried about your kid spending a hundred years or so finding themselves. And that fits their Chaotic Societies.

Dwarves on the other hand have a ton of responsibilities. You have your required military service, the amount of time you're supposed to serve as an apprentice in a trade, basically free labor. Their schooling is longer than human schooling, although it's not inherently better just intended to ensure conformity.

[KorvinStarmast]

Headcanon:
The drow magical item Tentacle Rod was originally designed by a jaded aristocrat for erotic encounters.
During development - similar to what happened at 3M with the adhesive that ended up on those yellow sticky note pads, or the blood thinner Viagra - things didn't quite work out as projected and they ended up better suited as something else: in this case, a weapon.

[Witty Username]

Something that I am still griping the implications of:
Arcane Magic in D&D is a creative pursuit, as much artistry or performance as it is applied knowledge.

I think this has lead to or has sprung from my just not groking the sorcerer vs wizard divide. It feels like something that just wouldn't have as sharp a division at the very least.

[Millstone85]

Something that I am still griping the implications of:
Arcane Magic in D&D is a creative pursuit, as much artistry or performance as it is applied knowledge.

I think this has lead to or has sprung from my just not groking the sorcerer vs wizard divide. It feels like something that just wouldn't have as sharp a division at the very least.I don't see sorcerers as being particularly artistic. Rather, they brute force their way with draconic blood or wild magic.

Bards, now... The way the wizard Gale of BG3 speaks about the Weave, how from an early age he could "compose it much like a musician or a poet", I have no hesitation respeccing him as a bard. Well, I could also see him as a sorcerer, but because of his more recent and more explosive circumstances.

[KorvinStarmast]

Arcane magic in the Vancian System is a akin to charging a capacitor with a kind of chaotic energy. The preparation/reading process is the charging process. The release is the burst of arcane power. Over time you develop the ability to handle more, and larger, capacitors. Mishandling the capacitors or the energy when charging them is dangerous.

Elric was a Melnibonéan Paladin, and Stormbringer was his Holy Avenger ... from a certain point of view. (Thanks, Obi Wan! :smallyuk: ) Elric rode a dragon ...

And about dragons.

(a) Dragons have bones made of an unusual material: extremely strong and light (the bone version of titanium that is also ductile). The bones are mostly hollow. (If you look at the rotor mast of Huey you'll find a hollow metal (steel) tube). This helps them deal with the Cube/Square law...but it isn't the whole solution. Dragon scales are very strong and thin (think carbon fiber composites) yet fairly light.

(b) In general, dragon's are far more lean than bulky. See the original Chinese folk lore dragon/golden dragon model rather than the buffed/steroid using dragons from Elmore to the 5e MM. (Heck, see Tolkien's original illustrations of Smaug. Lean, not buff).

(c) Dragon tails have something like fans/feathers at their tip that spread out in flight, offering improved stability and directional control in flight. When not flying the collapse down to a tip.

(d) The magic of a dragon is mostly held in its bone marrow. That's the truly magical stuff, and it's why older dragons can command more powerful magics/spells than younger dragons. More marrow. The marrow is kept moist by the soul energy of the dragon; when a dragon dies the marrow turns to dust as the 'fluid' of the soul, and its energy, energy vacates the body and heads into the afterlife. Dragon marrow is still prized by artificers and wizards who make magical items, which informs the centuries long vendetta between some of the dragon clans and wizards...(in my version of the World of Greyhawk).

(e) Dragons eat pine trees as breath mints.

[137beth]

Chromatic and Metallic dragons are actually the same. For example, Fire Dragons can have either red or gold scales, but both "red" and "gold" dragons belong to the same species. Note that not all animals of the same species and age category have the exact same stats, so, for example, the Monster Manual can include statblocks for two different ancient fire dragons with slightly different stats. It just so happens that one of those examples has red scales and the other one has gold scales.

Some splatbooks have included species of chromatic dragons without corresponding metallic dragons. Those are either because
a)There actually is a corresponding metallic dragon, but the monster manual didn't have space to show it, or
b)That particular species has a narrower gamut of scale colors than other true dragon species.

[KorvinStarmast]

Some splatbooks have included species of chromatic dragons without corresponding metallic dragons. Those are either because
a)There actually is a corresponding metallic dragon, but the monster manual didn't have space to show it, or
b)That particular species has a narrower gamut of scale colors than other true dragon species.

If you'd like, I'll send you the stats of my plaid dragon.

[Millstone85]

If you'd like, I'll send you the stats of my plaid dragon.It must be ludicrously fast.

[Spore]

Wouldn't keeping this a secret mean it doesn't do much to prevent robbery (since the robbers won't know it was for nothing until they've already done it)? I suppose it might prevent repeat robberies, but it might be better to put up big sign saying "MAGIC ITEMS WON'T WORK UNTIL ACTIVATED" or whatever.

I am pretty sure that is what activation phrases are for. So head canon:

An arcanist casts Identify to find out the phrase immediately. Any IDing of magic items past this is just standing x amount of time in front of the item and yelling any feasible phrase you can think of.

[KorvinStarmast]

It must be ludicrously fast. Why do you say that? Am I missing a reference? :smallconfused:

[Millstone85]

Why do you say that? Am I missing a reference? :smallconfused:Yes, to a very silly movie called Spaceballs.

https://i.pinimg.com/736x/36/87/e1/3687e1de3382826abc10ca696b261d0d.jpg

[RedMage125]

Why do you say that? Am I missing a reference? :smallconfused:

You asking that question just aged me like 20 years.

[LibraryOgre]

You asking that question just aged me like 20 years.

Must be more than 20... the movie itself is 37.

:biggrin:

[RedMage125]

Must be more than 20... the movie itself is 37.

:biggrin:

I said "like 20 years" because, like many of my generation, I don't like acknowledging that the 90s (when I first saw the movie) was 30 years ago.

So...thanks for hurting me with that.

[KorvinStarmast]

You asking that question just aged me like 20 years. I was around when that movie came out, and I enjoyed it as an irreverent parody of Star Wars, but I only watched it once.
May the Schwartz be with you. :smallcool:
I guess it's like The Princess Bride, and has a following. :smallsmile:

[LibraryOgre]

I said "like 20 years" because, like many of my generation, I don't like acknowledging that the 90s (when I first saw the movie) was 30 years ago.

So...thanks for hurting me with that.

Yesterday, I reminded a couple friends that we've known each other for more than 20 years.

I chose violence when I got up.

[Spore]

I said "like 20 years" because, like many of my generation, I don't like acknowledging that the 90s (when I first saw the movie) was 30 years ago.

So...thanks for hurting me with that.

Maybe the following will cheer you up. Today is further from Star Wars Episode 1 than Episode 1 was removed from the first original Star Wars movie.

[RedMage125]

Maybe the following will cheer you up. Today is further from Star Wars Episode 1 than Episode 1 was removed from the first original Star Wars movie.

That does not. That hurts a lot, actually.

[KorvinStarmast]

That does not. That hurts a lot, actually.
Let's go chug some (TM)Geritol together. :smallsigh:

[137beth]

If you'd like, I'll send you the stats of my plaid dragon.

Sure, why not!

[KorvinStarmast]

Sure, why not! Please check your PMs. :smallsmile:

[thorr-kan]

Must be more than 20... the movie itself is 37.

:biggrin:
YOU GO TO YOUR ROOM. You know what you've done.

Oddly, every time I see this thread, I actually have a Rifts thought: the Northern Gun giant robot with a railgun as a head. Looks something like this:
https://i.pinimg.com/originals/54/ad/16/54ad161c1d2556263edc2b92d2b04b3d.jpg

ObDnD: If I ever writeup my homebrew D&D game, the Dragonlance Minotaurs from Taladas and the Mystara Winged Minotaurs from the Savage Coast are going to be cohabitants of a decently run Empire, along the lines of Enlightened society in Al-Qadim.

[Bohandas]

The topology of Sigil is like a 3d versi9n of the board from the 20th century videogame Asteroids. Which is geometrically a torus (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/3-torus)

[137beth]

Please check your PMs. :smallsmile:

I didn't get anything?