DnD Head Canons

[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???

[LibraryOgre]

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

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!

[Batcathat]

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

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

[animorte]

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

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!

My favourite is the sea lion

[KillianHawkeye]

My favourite is the sea lion

Mine is the duckbunny.

[KorvinStarmast]

Mine is the duckbunny.

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.

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. 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 exist

Ever since I read the creation myth of Realmspace, I have been imagining Amaunator as actually being its sun.

Indeed, the myth goes:

1. Selûne and Shar are all the light and darkness in Realmspace.
2. They create Toril and other worlds, which together are Chauntea.
3. Chauntea demands warmth to nurture life. Selûne says yes, Shar no.
4. Selûne reaches to the Plane of Fire and gives Realmspace a sun.
5. 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.)