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.

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.

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.