Interpretation

[Matuka]

I think it's fair to say that humans as a species are incredibly inconsistent when it comes to opinions, which is what makes life fun and interesting (sometimes frustrating). The question I have is related to this. Is there anything that is normally in your dnd worlds, not as a result of rules or lore but because you just like it that way? Your own personal lore? Any other interpretations are welcome.

Examples: changes in how dimensions work, a redesign of the dnd pantheon, or something similar that no one would really notice unless it came up in game or in conversation.

[OldTrees1]

Illithids and Elder Brains are not the same species. Despite being slavers, Illithids are a slave race, and they don't even know it. Elder Brains love eating Illithid brains.

[Unoriginal]

Not sure if that fits, but elves in my setting clearly show the chaotic tendencies (as they're said to have in the 5e lore) when
I get the impression most people portray them as the subdued immortal type like in the LOTR movies. What's a party if the King doesn't turn into a giant elk and have his drunk subject pursue him?


Illithids and Elder Brains are not the same species. Despite being slavers, Illithids are a slave race, and they don't even know it. Elder Brains love eating Illithid brains.

That's actually the canon lore for Illithids and Elder Brains in 5e. Well, maybe the Elder Brains spawned from Illithid brains, but since they've become their own thing and the Mind Flayers are unaware they're slaving under them for the privilege of getting their brains and knowledge eaten.

[Zhorn]

As I tend to allow any official race while primarily run the Forgotten Realms setting, I'll weave in whatever justification needed to have it make sense why whatever race the players have fancied are in a setting that they may not be native to.

[Wizard_Lizard]

I have it that most kings are shapeshifted dragons in disguise forming a secret Illuminati. Simply because dragon kings are cool.

[OldTrees1]

That's actually the canon lore for Illithids and Elder Brains in 5e. Well, maybe the Elder Brains spawned from Illithid brains, but since they've become their own thing and the Mind Flayers are unaware they're slaving under them for the privilege of getting their brains and knowledge eaten.

I quickly checked the lore in VGtM. It seems my interpretation is not canon yet. The 5E lore leaves open the question of whether the relationship between Illithids and the Elder Brain are like cattle to a rancher or worker ants to a queen. The Elder Brain absorbs their brains, just like an Illithid Savant can eat an Illithid brain. But whether the Elder Brain is another form of Illithid is not settled yet, nor is whether the Elder Brains consider the Illithids to be cattle.

It is quite a plausible interpretation, but not quite canon yet. But it is an interesting idea of Elder Brains ranching Illithids that ranch humanoids that ranche rothe (underground sheep thing).

[Millstone85]

Some beholders are "failed" gibbering orbs (but you better not say it to their faces).

A gibbering mouther can develop levitation and eye rays, transforming into a gibbering abomination and then into a gibbering orb. But as the creature reaches this level of coherence, it becomes possible for one of the voices to silence the others. This results in the merging of most of the mouths and eyes, and in the solidification into a permanent form.

Illustration. (https://i.imgur.com/YUkQ41r.png)

A beholder's infatuation with its exact shape stems from this experience, and its paranoia helps keep the voices silent. Even beholders born from dreams or eggs inherit this mindset.


It is quite a plausible interpretation, but not quite canon yet. But it is an interesting idea of Elder Brains ranching Illithids that ranch humanoids that ranche rothe (underground sheep thing).Perhaps the most interesting thing about VGtM illithid lore is that it claims elder brains actually believe that other minds survive within them.


An elder brain also sees itself as a savior of the mind flayer race and a living memorial that preserves the memories of the mind flayers' prey. By its twisted logic, humanoids whose brains are devoured by the colony are rendered immortal, their memories preserved forever in the elder brain's labyrinthine mind.For the setting I am working on, I imagined a race called the ghaikesvi (According to BG3, ghaik is the gith word for illithid, and I made up that esvi means helper). Their ancestors remained on the side of the masters when Gith called for rebellion, but were then disappointed to see the empire fall so easily. The survivors decided to reinvent ceremorphosis.

Modern ghaikesvi all have an illithid tadpole within them, of which they slow down the development through psionic discipline. They eat the brains of beasts, and the most talented among them are allowed to fully transform into illithids and eat the preserved brains of deceased ghaikesvi, while being themselves destined to feed an elder brain. The ghaikesvi believe that all involved beings survive through this chain, though one must strengthen their mind to ensure it is so.

Are they right, or is it all complete hogwash? I intend to leave the question open.

[Unoriginal]

I quickly checked the lore in VGtM. It seems my interpretation is not canon yet. The 5E lore leaves open the question of whether the relationship between Illithids and the Elder Brain are like cattle to a rancher or worker ants to a queen. The Elder Brain absorbs their brains, just like an Illithid Savant can eat an Illithid brain. But whether the Elder Brain is another form of Illithid is not settled yet, nor is whether the Elder Brains consider the Illithids to be cattle.

It is quite a plausible interpretation, but not quite canon yet. But it is an interesting idea of Elder Brains ranching Illithids that ranch humanoids that ranche rothe (underground sheep thing).

Fair, it seems I was misremembering. Or rather, I was remembering that Mike Mearls's interview where he talked about how Illithids are interesting for being geniuses but enslaved.




Are they right, or is it all complete hogwash? I intend to leave the question open.

Open questions are very important, I find. The blank space on the map is at least as important as the filled parts, to make things interesting.

[OldTrees1]

For the setting I am working on, I imagined a race called the ghaikesvi

Quite interesting. I expect normal Illithids would see that as unnecessarily slow ceremorphosis but volunteers are easier to use.

Interesting note: There is canon about 1 person/personality surviving ceremorphosis.

[MrCharlie]

In every homebrew setting I've ever wrote, Gnomes are hybrid Dwarf/Elves, and halflings are hybrid human/dwarves (+/- elf).

It's not canon, but it succinctly answers a bunch of questions about hybridization that inevitably come up. The big six races are all actually the same species, just different mixing of traits.

[firelistener]

Most of 5e is written such that Common is regarded as a universal language everyone knows and not specific to any race. However, I usually make it the Human language and have civilizations where Humans aren't the majority treat it as an exotic language. This helps me bring language proficiencies into relevant role play way more often and helps the exotic cultures feel more exotic.

[Kyutaru]

Humans and Variant Humans are not the same species. Humans are a slave race and they don't even know it. Variant Humans control the world while subjugating the lesser human species.

[Amechra]

Some beholders are "failed" gibbering orbs (but you better not say it to their faces).

A gibbering mouther can develop levitation and eye rays, transforming into a gibbering abomination and then into a gibbering orb. But as the creature reaches this level of coherence, it becomes possible for one of the voices to silence the others. This results in the merging of most of the mouths and eyes, and in the solidification into a permanent form.

Illustration. (https://i.imgur.com/YUkQ41r.png)

A beholder's infatuation with its exact shape stems from this experience, and its paranoia helps keep the voices silent. Even beholders born from dreams or eggs inherit this mindset.

I like this. I like this quite a bit.

[Wizard_Lizard]

I dunno but I've always like the idea of authoritarian gnomes. Don't ask me why cause I have no clue.

[DeadMech]

Fire elves are walking mood rings. Their skin has lot of small dots of pigment like an octopus that changes size in response to emotional state. Red Yellow Black and White. Red is anger, yellow is happiness, white is fear, black is sad. More complex emotions would be combinations of said colors. Embarrassment might be orange as example.

Of course just having fire elves in all my settings is also a bit of a personal quirk just to start with I guess.

[Kyutaru]

Fire elves are walking mood rings. Their skin has lot of small dots of pigment like an octopus that changes size in response to emotional state. Red Yellow Black and White. Red is anger, yellow is happiness, white is fear, black is sad. More complex emotions would be combinations of said colors. Embarrassment might be orange as example.

Of course just having fire elves in all my settings is also a bit of a personal quirk just to start with I guess.

This matches the color scheme and rough personalities of the characters in the show RWBY. It's a great dynamic.

[Chronos]

The Draconic language has four registers, depending on the relative status of the person speaking and the person being addressed. The disciple register is used for an inferior addressing a superior. The peer register is used between those of similar status. The magister register is used for a superior addressing an inferior. And the impersonal register is used when addressing things for which obedience isn't even in question, like constructs. Using the wrong register out of the first three (or what the person addressed thinks of as the wrong register) is highly impolite, either condescending or insolent. Using the impersonal register when one of the others is appropriate, or vice-versa, is not impolite; it just marks the speaker as an idiot. And most wizards who learn Draconic do so mostly in the context of spells, which is all the impersonal register, and so they tend to make that mistake frequently.

True dragons use the disciple register when addressing their sire, dam, or deity; the peer register when addressing other dragons of greater age or more powerful variety, and the magister register for everyone else. Kobolds use the magister register when addressing their children, peer register for all other kobolds, and disciple register for everyone else. Lizardfolk use their registers according to whether they think they can beat the other thing in a fight, and peer if they're not sure.

[MinotaurWarrior]

The mortal frame of "life" and "afterlife" is wrong. Mortals are the nymphal form, or rather mortals life is the "pre-life" to your real life in the outer realms. Elves aren't long-lived, they are slow developing. Kobolds, Goblins, etc are just faster to mature.

A real Orc is one who lives with Grumuush. A mortal orc is more-or-less just a pre-orc. Same goes with all the races and religions.

Mechanically, this is more or less canon. It's just an ignored implication.

[Willie the Duck]

My own personal lore:

Alignment is team jersey at best. All sentient (nondemonic/celestial/undead) species that hate you or are plotting your downfall do so because of reasons (historical, resources, opportunity, or otherwise). This includes dragons.
Deities do not need worshippers to survive. I do not know why this became the dominant D&D thought on deities, even when it hamstrings the concept of an elder forgotten deity or the like.
There are two types of Minotaurs: a race of hooved minotaurs that breed true and have their own culture; and individual, human-like-footed minotaurs that are cursed humans, like the early monster manual entries and alluding to the Greek myth.
There is some innocuous. harmless real world animal that is supremely deadly to some mythical badass creature. It changes each campaign. In the current one, Koalas supplement their herbivorous diet with the flesh of manticores (or maybe that's just a myth).
Not every monster exists everywhere. This is often seen in D&D when there is a subcontinent where the dinosaurs live (Chult in FR), but why not the same for unicorns or displacer beasts or dire wolves? Perhaps the reason why historically-accurate medieval castle existing in D&Dland has no specific protections against flying monsters is that there aren't any this far west, or the like.
Cities have walls. Towns have walls. Individual farms often have the main house behind a wall. This may or may not be true of the canonical gameworlds, but I just reinforce the notion.




I quickly checked the lore in VGtM. It seems my interpretation is not canon yet. The 5E lore leaves open the question of whether the relationship between Illithids and the Elder Brain are like cattle to a rancher or worker ants to a queen. The Elder Brain absorbs their brains, just like an Illithid Savant can eat an Illithid brain. But whether the Elder Brain is another form of Illithid is not settled yet, nor is whether the Elder Brains consider the Illithids to be cattle.

It is quite a plausible interpretation, but not quite canon yet. But it is an interesting idea of Elder Brains ranching Illithids that ranch humanoids that ranche rothe (underground sheep thing).


Fair, it seems I was misremembering. Or rather, I was remembering that Mike Mearls's interview where he talked about how Illithids are interesting for being geniuses but enslaved..

Mearls may have mentioned that late-2e lore from The Illithiad (https://www.amazon.com/Illithiad-Advanced-Dungeons-Dragons-2nd/dp/0786912065), which is pretty close to OldTrees take. Illithid believe that when they die, their brains are fed to the Elder Brain and they live on as a conciousness within the EB, but that's pretty much not the case, and the EB consider the Illithid to be valuable pawns at best.

Someone somewhere in secession of D&D lore deciders seemed to really like the idea of people diligently slaving away for a cause thinking that their contributions were valued, only for the reader to know otherwise. There seem to be touches of that in odd little places.

[TigerT20]

Lycanthropes can only switch between one form or the other, with no hybrid form. However, when an individual become fully corrupted by the curse they can become stuck inbetween forms - forming the classical werebeast.


Another is that I like Lizardfolk to be more emotional: their whole thing is that they're the masters of survival, but emotions and things are essentially nature's programming so it doesn't make sense for them not to have them. It's still a limited list, but they now have more than just pleasure, aggression and fear.

[Unoriginal]

My own personal lore:

Deities do not need worshippers to survive. I do not know why this became the dominant D&D thought on deities, even when it hamstrings the concept of an elder forgotten deity or the like.



Not sure about "surviving", but D&D gods being only as powerful as the amount of worship they get is at least as old as the 3.X Deities and Demigods book. In 5e, a deity without worshiper is either dormant but able to come back or an incorporeal spirit

[Amechra]

Let's see, stuff I at least consider adding when I run a game...

• There are goblin empires ruled by barghest nobility. Cannibalism is considered to be very respectful of the dead, with "getting eaten by a barghest" as one of the greatest possible posthumous honors.

• Orcs tend to have their own lands and traditions - most of the ones you see when you're murderhoboing adventuring are exiles, mercenaries, or the Orcish equivalent of adventurers. In my latest game (on indefinite hold due to Covid-19), the nobility primarily speaks a dialect of Orcish because Orcs conquered the area a few centuries earlier and then settled down.

[Willie the Duck]

Not sure about "surviving", but D&D gods being only as powerful as the amount of worship they get is at least as old as the 3.X Deities and Demigods book. In 5e, a deity without worshiper is either dormant but able to come back or an incorporeal spirit

I know it existed in some form in 1e/2e as well. BECMI/Mystara originally had gods"Immortals" which were powerful because they were powerful. Then the adventure Wrath of the Immortals came out and retconned them into the same framework. I know there are real world pantheons which had similar structure, but in general it has too many issues for me.

[Wizard_Lizard]

Lycanthropy is actually a virulent disease that was created by Mind Flayers as an experiment.

[sithlordnergal]

I tend to make the "Monsterous" races a bit more civilized. They aren't automatically evil, and they are willing to work with other races.

I also like to upend the idea of the "Evil Undead Empire". In my most common setting, there is an empire who's back is built upon Undead, like Zombies and Skeletons. Its not an evil nation though, and its people don't live in fear. Instead, the Undead are used more like robots. The only downside is that those who die are brought back as Undead to add to the workforce, but the people there see it more as an honor then something horrible. Honestly, the biggest flaw of that country is the fact that it must always be ruled by Necromancers, lest the Undead go on a rampage.

As a result, people in that nation are able to focus on things that interest them instead of having to work in fields, or do labor that they don't really want to do. The country is well known for its crafters, philosophers, ect. because the people doing those jobs are doing them because they want to, and put all their heart and soul into it.

As a side not, its also considered one of the most dangerous countries to go to war against because they can call on an army of literally millions of undead at the drop of a hat, and if your soldiers die they will be raised as undead to fight you. A country ruled by dragons learned this the hard way when they tried to invade, lost a few dragons, and found themselves fighting Dracoliches.

[OldTrees1]

I tend to make the "Monsterous" races a bit more civilized. They aren't automatically evil, and they are willing to work with other races.

I often forget this is a non standard interpretation.


I also like to upend the idea of the "Evil Undead Empire". In my most common setting, there is an empire who's back is built upon Undead, like Zombies and Skeletons. Its not an evil nation though, and its people don't live in fear. Instead, the Undead are used more like robots. The only downside is that those who die are brought back as Undead to add to the workforce, but the people there see it more as an honor then something horrible. Honestly, the biggest flaw of that country is the fact that it must always be ruled by Necromancers, lest the Undead go on a rampage.

I had a 3E necromancer PC whoses objective was to found such an empire and try to attract various "Monstrous Humanoids" peoples. Trying to create a better world, on the back of various bones I found.

[micahaphone]

All dwarves have beards. Non-dwarves have difficulty telling dwarven genders apart.

The top secret origin of dwarves is that they are an asexual species, new dwarves are created by master artisan clerics of Moradin in a complex ritual.

[Wizard_Lizard]

All dwarves have beards. Non-dwarves have difficulty telling dwarven genders apart.

The top secret origin of dwarves is that they are an asexual species, new dwarves are created by master artisan clerics of Moradin in a complex ritual.

I like the discworld lore (Because of course I do it's discworld) where dwarven courtship largely involves finding out the sex of the other dwarf underneath the beard and chainmail.

[Valmark]

I pulled out one time this misterious wizard that created this all-purpose library plane and spread magic items through all the planes that give them an eye in the world. Those were also silly usually. The group in question found the Wand of Immovable Sheep.

I'm amazed by the fact that this Wand has become an expected item for the group to find and by the number of ways immovable sheeps can be used, in and out of a fight.
Oh, and I go to any campaign I DM with a stat sheet ready for when they'll piss off a bunch of sheperds.

Also in my games necromancy isn't evil and it's not too rare for the players to find even good clerics using them for some reason or the other.
As a player, I love Danse Macabre.

[micahaphone]

I like the discworld lore (Because of course I do it's discworld) where dwarven courtship largely involves finding out the sex of the other dwarf underneath the beard and chainmail.

I steal so much from Discworld.

GNU Terry Pratchett

[Wizard_Lizard]

I steal so much from Discworld.

GNU Terry Pratchett

Honestly samee.....

[Matuka]

I steal so much from Discworld.

GNU Terry Pratchett

To be fair, discworld has a lot worth stealing.

[Wizard_Lizard]

To be fair, discworld has a lot worth stealing.

All praise lord sir terry pratchett, may he Rest In Peace.