DnD Head Canons

[Witty Username]

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

[Millstone85]

By Tome Of Foes assessment. Devils can no longer add to the Nine Hells due to the Pact Primeval acting as a limit on how much they can exploit any given material world. And Asmoudeous uses the Blood War as a justification for his continued existence because of how much he devotes to containing the Abyss.

MToF describes how Asmodeus got Primus to acknowledge him as a force of law and a necessary evil. It also attributes to Primus the creation of the Ruby Rod as an artifact that "grants Asmodeus and his underlings the right to enter into contracts with mortals for their souls but unleashes an inescapable punishment upon any devil that breaches such a contract" (MToF p10).

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

[Bohandas]

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

[Witty Username]

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

[vasilidor]

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

[HidesHisEyes]

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

[KorvinStarmast]

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

You are my hero.

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

So do I.

[dafrca]

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

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

[HidesHisEyes]

You are my hero.
So do I.

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

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

[Luccan]

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

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

[KorvinStarmast]

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

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

[Bohandas]

In fantasy in general I'm struck with the idea of most summoning diagrams actually being based on petrie polygons of regular polytopes, such as the 4-simplex and the octohedron

[PairO'Dice Lost]

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

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

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

[Wizard_Lizard]

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

[NovenFromTheSun]

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

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

[thorr-kan]

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

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

[NovenFromTheSun]

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

Thank you kindly!

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

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

[Vknight]

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

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

[dafrca]

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

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

[Vknight]

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

The more hybrid celtic and golfer but correct

[Spore]

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

Imagine their battles being ABOUT the color scheme.

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

"Waaaaaaagh!"

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

[KorvinStarmast]

Imagine their battles being ABOUT the color scheme.

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

"Waaaaaaagh!"

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

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

[LibraryOgre]

Imagine their battles being ABOUT the color scheme.

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

"Waaaaaaagh!"

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

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

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

[KorvinStarmast]

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

Elf Eye for the Fashionable Orc might become a huge hit as a traveling show ...

[Bohandas]

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

[Spore]

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

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

[KorvinStarmast]

The timeline as I see it:
OD&D - Early Dark Ages
AD&D 1E - Transition of Dark Ages to Early Renaissance
AD&D 2E - Early Renaissance
D&D 3.0-3.5 - Mid Renaissance
D&D 4E - NEVER HAPPENED - or possibly a past timeline off of the d20 Modern setting
D&D 5E - After Renaissance, maybe just before what would have been our Industrial Revolution
*Eberron in play is like adding the Industrial Revolution to the edition's timeline

I'd suggest OD&D is Late Dark Ages (Clovis-Charlemagne) to early Medieval, given that it has Turcopoles showing up for a cleric when they build a stronghold.
But I love your timeline, would use!

[No brains]

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

[Bohandas]

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

[RedMage125]

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

Pretty sure that's actually canon...