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Thread: DnD Head Canons

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    Default Re: DnD Head Canons

    Quote Originally Posted by NigelWalmsley View Post
    Then why is Lolth pushing the baroque social structure? It doesn't really matter if she's imposing a Lawful social structure because she thinks it's fun. You've still lost any predictive power alignment might have had when one baroque backstabbing nightmare is "Lawful" and another is "Chaotic".
    Quote Originally Posted by Bohandas
    I think it's possibly like the difference between a Baatezu courtroom, vs the Abyssal courtroom layer Woeful Escarand. The baator court is going to be cruel but it's going to follow the rule of law, whereas the abyssal court exists as a mockery of the rule of law and is openly corrupt.
    Pretty much this. It's the age-old question of Who are you when no one is watching?, that is, if you take a bunch of drow out of Menzoberranzan or remove Lolth's influence on their society (permanently and in a way that they all know it's the case, not temporarily and in a way that her priestesses try to cover it up like during Lolth's Silence), what does their new society look like?

    This is actually something that happens in-setting, with Chaotic-but-not-quite-so-Evil drow leaving the Underdark and joining with followers of Eilistraee, a CG goddess. The Church of Eilistraee is still a matriarchal theocracy, but it has a very flat hierarchy, different settlements (and groups within those settlements) are only loosely interlinked, and male and female drow can take on any desired role (and males can lead, though mostly they don't), a far cry from the traditional strict hierarchy with strict House associations and strict gender roles--so, much closer to other Chaotic societies like the moon elven cities or orc tribes than the byzantine Lolthian drow culture.

    Quote Originally Posted by KoDT69 View Post
    I have a head cannon to share. Since I've played most editions up to 3.5, this is how I see it all as being the same world. Basically as time passes, the laws of magic and whatever it is that governs the powers available to the living people/creatures changes and evolved over time. That would explain how even PC classes started with minimal capabilities and we're very limited in power, then developed immunities, resistances, faster actions, etc.
    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've been considering converting some older edition magic items but making them with no change if possible and tagging them as "Heirloom" or "Ancient" just to see how it goes.
    I do something similar in my games. For instance, the thing where 1e psionics only involved random wild talents, 2e psionics had classes but required some innate talent, and 3e psionics allowed anyone to train in psionic classes, and in AD&D psionics was different from magic by default but in 3e they're transparent by default? In several of my long-running settings that survived long enough to go through edition changes (and under my own take on FR's history), the former is due to psionicists reverse-engineering and codifying psionics in the same way that wizardry was first developed and the latter is due to research collaboration between psionicists and arcanists to unify their magical traditions. Scholars in-setting know that psionics used to work differently and will talk about So-and-So's early experiments in awakening psionic potential or Such-and-Such's Theory of Thoughtform Universality or the like when discussing the history of magic/psonics interactions.

    Several of my longer campaigns have involved time travel to some extent (either short jaunts into the past or areas that were brought forward in time), and when that happens I've broken out older-edition rules for a few sessions and/or converted things to newer edition rules to hammer home the difference. The very first time I did this, I secretly converted all my player's characters from 3e to 2e beforehand in preparation for an upcoming temporal jaunt; when they stepped through a time portal (thinking it was a regular portal) and one of them asked to make a Knowledge (Planes) check to see if they could figure out where the portal sent them, with a perfectly straight face I responded "There's no such non-weapon proficiency; perhaps you mean Portal Feel or Planar Survival?" while handing over their 2e sheets, and it really drove home the "we're not in Kansas anymore" feel of the adventure.
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    Quote Originally Posted by PairO'Dice Lost View Post
    Pretty much this. It's the age-old question of Who are you when no one is watching?, that is, if you take a bunch of drow out of Menzoberranzan or remove Lolth's influence on their society (permanently and in a way that they all know it's the case, not temporarily and in a way that her priestesses try to cover it up like during Lolth's Silence), what does their new society look like?

    This is actually something that happens in-setting, with Chaotic-but-not-quite-so-Evil drow leaving the Underdark and joining with followers of Eilistraee, a CG goddess. The Church of Eilistraee is still a matriarchal theocracy, but it has a very flat hierarchy, different settlements (and groups within those settlements) are only loosely interlinked, and male and female drow can take on any desired role (and males can lead, though mostly they don't), a far cry from the traditional strict hierarchy with strict House associations and strict gender roles--so, much closer to other Chaotic societies like the moon elven cities or orc tribes than the byzantine Lolthian drow culture.



    I do something similar in my games. For instance, the thing where 1e psionics only involved random wild talents, 2e psionics had classes but required some innate talent, and 3e psionics allowed anyone to train in psionic classes, and in AD&D psionics was different from magic by default but in 3e they're transparent by default? In several of my long-running settings that survived long enough to go through edition changes (and under my own take on FR's history), the former is due to psionicists reverse-engineering and codifying psionics in the same way that wizardry was first developed and the latter is due to research collaboration between psionicists and arcanists to unify their magical traditions. Scholars in-setting know that psionics used to work differently and will talk about So-and-So's early experiments in awakening psionic potential or Such-and-Such's Theory of Thoughtform Universality or the like when discussing the history of magic/psonics interactions.

    Several of my longer campaigns have involved time travel to some extent (either short jaunts into the past or areas that were brought forward in time), and when that happens I've broken out older-edition rules for a few sessions and/or converted things to newer edition rules to hammer home the difference. The very first time I did this, I secretly converted all my player's characters from 3e to 2e beforehand in preparation for an upcoming temporal jaunt; when they stepped through a time portal (thinking it was a regular portal) and one of them asked to make a Knowledge (Planes) check to see if they could figure out where the portal sent them, with a perfectly straight face I responded "There's no such non-weapon proficiency; perhaps you mean Portal Feel or Planar Survival?" while handing over their 2e sheets, and it really drove home the "we're not in Kansas anymore" feel of the adventure.
    2e and 1e are not so far from 3e and 5e in terms of classes but multiclassing worked very differently(there was dual classing and some other form of multiclassing and classes and multiclassings allowed depends on the race) so if 3e/5e characters were multiclassed it could make the conversion to earlier editions painfully complex to do.(and it is odd to see your dwarf something suddenly lose a bunch of levels "because they were above the class level cap for a dwarf" but that is kind of excepted when changing editions)
    And for converting a 4e caster to any other edition you need to do a lot of complicated stuff.(because spells works massively differently between this edition and the others)
    Last edited by noob; 2020-11-02 at 08:13 AM.

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    Default Re: DnD Head Canons

    Quote Originally Posted by noob View Post
    2e and 1e are not so far from 3e and 5e in terms of classes but multiclassing worked very differently(there was dual classing and some other form of multiclassing and classes and multiclassings allowed depends on the race) so if 3e/5e characters were multiclassed it could make the conversion to earlier editions painfully complex to do.(and it is odd to see your dwarf something suddenly lose a bunch of levels "because they were above the class level cap for a dwarf" but that is kind of excepted when changing editions)
    Yes, I'm well aware of how AD&D multiclassing and dual-classing work. I did all the conversions to preserve capabilities as closely as possible, not just looking at levels and going "Welp, he's a Dwarf Fighter 5 in 3e so he gets what a Dwarf Fighter 5 gets in AD&D." Certainly there's no way to figure out arbitrary conversions between AD&D and 3e, but converting individual characters is quite easy if you know both editions, especially if you're going between 2e and 3e and are willing to dip into Player's Options stuff.

    And for converting a 4e caster to any other edition you need to do a lot of complicated stuff.(because spells works massively differently between this edition and the others)
    You can't time travel between 3e and 4e, as 4e is obviously an alternate Mirror Universe timeline where all the PCs' equivalents wear goatees, and said timeline is rightfully stricken from existence by the end of the adventure.
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    Quote Originally Posted by PairO'Dice Lost View Post
    You can't time travel between 3e and 4e, as 4e is obviously an alternate Mirror Universe timeline where all the PCs' equivalents wear goatees, and said timeline is rightfully stricken from existence by the end of the adventure.
    On a related note, one of my headcanons is that the Abyss contains chaotic evil alternate versions of all the other planes
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    Quote Originally Posted by Bohandas View Post
    On a related note, one of my headcanons is that the Abyss contains chaotic evil alternate versions of all the other planes
    It is recursive? Is there another entire alternate Abyss inside the Abyss?
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    Quote Originally Posted by KillianHawkeye View Post
    It is recursive? Is there another entire alternate Abyss inside the Abyss?
    it is called the layers of the abyss I guess.
    each layer of the abyss is the abyss within itself?
    Is the abyss a layered cake made of abysses?
    Last edited by noob; 2020-11-03 at 04:31 AM.

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    Quote Originally Posted by noob View Post
    Is the abyss a layered cake made of abysses?
    Well now, you made this classic image look yummy yummy.

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    Quote Originally Posted by Millstone85 View Post
    Well now, you made this classic image look yummy yummy.
    Just flip the image and it is a layered cake.
    I can confirm.

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    Quote Originally Posted by noob View Post
    it is called the layers of the abyss I guess.
    each layer of the abyss is the abyss within itself?
    Is the abyss a layered cake made of abysses?
    It would explain why the abyss has infinite layers.
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    It's Abysses all the way down.
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    The Athar's "Great Unknown" is either the DM or Gary Gygax
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    It just occurred to me that the reason why low level adventures haven't already been solved by higher level heroes is because high level heroes teleport everywhere and are never in the small out of the way villiages that low level adventures happen in
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    There is only a single dwarf in existence. He is an alcoholic racist miner who speaks with a Scottish accent and exist in many places and times, and even in multiple universes at the same time.
    We are not standing on the shoulders of giants, but on very tall tower of other dwarves.

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    Quote Originally Posted by Yora View Post
    There is only a single dwarf in existence. He is an alcoholic racist miner who speaks with a Scottish accent and exist in many places and times, and even in multiple universes at the same time.
    ...ok, this makes the dwarven orgy I was at last week REALLY weird.
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    Quote Originally Posted by Yora View Post
    There is only a single dwarf in existence. He is an alcoholic racist miner who speaks with a Scottish accent and exist in many places and times, and even in multiple universes at the same time.
    I assume you are familiar with this:
    https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/One-electron_universe

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    Quote Originally Posted by Cicciograna View Post
    I assume you are familiar with this:
    https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/One-electron_universe
    I still have to watch Tenet, but...
    Yoichiro Nambu later applied it to all production and annihilation of particle-antiparticle pairs, stating that "the eventual creation and annihilation of pairs that may occur now and then, is no creation nor annihilation, but only a change of directions of moving particles, from past to future, or from future to past."
    sounds a lot like what I read about it.

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    Have I suggested yet that Truespeak sounds like modem noise
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    Quote Originally Posted by Bohandas View Post
    Have I suggested yet that Truespeak sounds like modem noise
    As if Truespeaking didn't have enough problems already - now no one wants to be in the same room while you do your thing.
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    Truespeaking warps things through warping their names in such a way creatures from the far realms are terrified of those who use truespeak for the fear they might actually understand their names and pronounce those so bad they would become three dimensional creatures.
    Because seriously true-speak checks reach the realms of nonsense like 180 at which point basically anything could be possible.
    When you think about how reality is bent by a high skill check in a mundane skill a high truespeak check would bend reality supremely.
    Last edited by noob; 2020-11-30 at 07:26 AM.

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    Quote Originally Posted by Yora View Post
    There is only a single dwarf in existence. He is an alcoholic racist miner who speaks with a Scottish accent and exist in many places and times, and even in multiple universes at the same time.
    Can confirm; I have met this dwarf several times across multiple campaigns and multiple DMs. He is inescapable.
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    Quote Originally Posted by Velaryon View Post
    Can confirm; I have met this dwarf several times across multiple campaigns and multiple DMs. He is inescapable.
    Some instances of that dwarf also works in forges or teleports around and casts disintegrate.
    The trick is that in its very long life it changed carrier a lot of times because after spending 10^143 years mining you want to do something else.
    Last edited by noob; 2020-12-01 at 03:25 PM.

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    Hobgoblins have a Russian accent

    Dwarves are Scottish

    Thay is less evil than the books make it out to be. still evil but not mustache-twirling villain evil. more child-friendly Russia evil.

    Krynn is the Frist World Created

    Spelljammers are more common than the lore makes them out to be. in lore Spelljammers are very common but the books make them out to be kinda rare, I like to ply it up instead of being common their supper common. like people in small farming villages know what spelljammers are, not like by sight but have heard of them and maybe seen one or two.

    all gods are *******s, I like the idea of dnd having a massively different morality from us and playing into that making the gods more *******-ish than the lore makes them out to be.
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    Quote Originally Posted by Amdy_vill View Post
    Hobgoblins have a Russian accent

    Dwarves are Scottish

    Thay is less evil than the books make it out to be. still evil but not mustache-twirling villain evil. more child-friendly Russia evil.

    Krynn is the Frist World Created

    Spelljammers are more common than the lore makes them out to be. in lore Spelljammers are very common but the books make them out to be kinda rare, I like to ply it up instead of being common their supper common. like people in small farming villages know what spelljammers are, not like by sight but have heard of them and maybe seen one or two.

    all gods are *******s, I like the idea of dnd having a massively different morality from us and playing into that making the gods more *******-ish than the lore makes them out to be.
    You do not need a lot of effort if you are in the forgotten realms for the last thing.
    Spelljammers being common makes a lot of sense.
    It would explain why there is so many campaigns with them at some random place: spelljammers are precious so you would not find one stuck in a place often if they were rare.
    Thay have explicitly slavery but it does not means they inflict cruelty to their slaves for no reason: while there is a lot of things oriented about slavery and violence against slaves in thay prcs and spells it could be a thing mostly to be used against slaves that escapes.
    Nybor's Gentle Reminder is explicitly said to now be used mostly in fights by thayan mages while before it was used to motivate slaves through pain suggesting that the slave conditions in thay improved(so it is probably just horrible slavery instead of horrible slavery with gratuitous cruelty) so your headcannon seems compatible with the low amount of fluff I have read about thay.
    Last edited by noob; 2020-12-09 at 05:30 PM.

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    Quote Originally Posted by noob View Post
    You do not need a lot of effort if you are in the forgotten realms for the last thing.
    Spelljammers being common makes a lot of sense.
    It would explain why there is so many campaigns with them at some random place: spelljammers are precious so you would not find one stuck in a place often if they were rare.
    Thay have explicitly slavery but it does not means they inflict cruelty to their slaves for no reason: while there is a lot of things oriented about slavery and violence against slaves in thay prcs and spells it could be a thing mostly to be used against slaves that escapes.
    Nybor's Gentle Reminder is explicitly said to now be used mostly in fights by thayan mages while before it was used to motivate slaves through pain suggesting that the slave conditions in thay improved(so it is probably just horrible slavery instead of horrible slavery with gratuitous cruelty) so your headcannon seems compatible with the low amount of fluff I have read about thay.
    I feel is compatible because more recent thay info dumps have been moving them towards my view. Thay is my personal favorite setting as I love to play necromancers that aren't evil and several sources call out thay for having that. Thay is just a great piece of lore that I wish got more attention.
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    I'd like to throw my support behind the suggestion by someone on one of the other threads that the fiendish familiar symbiont (Fiend Folio pg219) is a byproduct to Yugoloth promotion to ultraloth status. It's a little evil face from the lower planes, and yugoloths lose their faces when they become ultraloths
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    About half the things that people chalk up to "crazy wizard did it" are just naturally or super-naturally occurring monsters. Owlbears are neither owls nor bears, just a super predator that evolved to hunt Dire Deer and Giant Rats. Otyughs evolved from various algae and bacteria that ate other stuff like that that evolved into black puddings.
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    Quote Originally Posted by Lvl45DM! View Post
    About half the things that people chalk up to "crazy wizard did it" are just naturally or super-naturally occurring monsters. Owlbears are neither owls nor bears, just a super predator that evolved to hunt Dire Deer and Giant Rats.
    I agree with this. It's like how in real life the platypus isn't closely releated to either the duck or to the beaver despite the fact that it looks dead on like both of them
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  28. - Top - End - #508
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    Default Re: DnD Head Canons

    I remember some old, old comment about how owlbears might be related to some dinosaurs.

    If you have a body a bit like a protoceratops, with a beaked head on a four-limbed body, plus feathers, like a lot of dinosaurs had, you're basically halfway there.
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  29. - Top - End - #509
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    Default Re: DnD Head Canons

    Quote Originally Posted by Lvl45DM! View Post
    About half the things that people chalk up to "crazy wizard did it" are just naturally or super-naturally occurring monsters. Owlbears are neither owls nor bears, just a super predator that evolved to hunt Dire Deer and Giant Rats. Otyughs evolved from various algae and bacteria that ate other stuff like that that evolved into black puddings.
    I say this as constructive criticism, and not an attempt to "debunk", but...

    How does this explain the fact that (pre-5e) Otyughs can speak Common?
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  30. - Top - End - #510
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    Default Re: DnD Head Canons

    Quote Originally Posted by RedMage125 View Post
    I say this as constructive criticism, and not an attempt to "debunk", but...

    How does this explain the fact that (pre-5e) Otyughs can speak Common?
    Otyughs are smart enough for that so it is just a matter of having the right culture since there is not really such thing as "inadapted vocal chords" in dnd.

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