DnD Head Canons

[Eldan]

Right.
Mine is: Not medieval. Classical.

As in ancient greek classical. You know, when people in the stories actually went on quests, heroes battled mighty monsters, all that shazz.

Hey they did that in medieval literature too. And some were just as mighty. Roland hacked a mountain in two when angry. The hacked-apart mountain is still there at the French-Spanish border. Some of Arthur's knights did some downright ridiculous things in a lot of the stories, too.

[Luccan]

Hey they did that in medieval literature too. And some were just as mighty. Roland hacked a mountain in two when angry. The hacked-apart mountain is still there at the French-Spanish border. Some of Arthur's knights did some downright ridiculous things in a lot of the stories, too.

If I recall, many of Arthur's knights originally had cool magic powers. It was only later we started depicting them as relatively regular humans.

I treat gnomes and dwarves as being related. Like, somewhere closer than many other species, they have a common ancestor. They acknowledge this by referring to each other as "cousin" and they get along famously. I know this is sort-of canon already, but my interpretation is specifically that neither came first and that they're equals. Which makes it all the more tragic to the more "surface-dwelling" groups that duergar treat the deep gnomes so terribly.

Elves can grow facial hair, but it isn't considered stylish or polite in most communities. Plus it takes them like a decade to grow a decent beard.

Halflings generally have the blood of multiple subraces in them, they just have certain traits more pronounced to establish their own subrace. They also have a loose collection of travelling lawmen expected to uphold justice in any halfling community and see to the people's well being. Caravans and permanent communities both exist in halfling culture; most communities are fine with their folk coming and going between the two.

[PostMortemCP]

Unpopular headcannon here.... the pathfinder world was made when a PC made it to god level and then looked upon the kingdoms of mortals and said.... “I can make this fun again”

[PostMortemCP]

If I recall, many of Arthur's knights originally had cool magic powers. It was only later we started depicting them as relatively regular humans.

I treat gnomes and dwarves as being related. Like, somewhere closer than many other species, they have a common ancestor. They acknowledge this by referring to each other as "cousin" and they get along famously. I know this is sort-of canon already, but my interpretation is specifically that neither came first and that they're equals. Which makes it all the more tragic to the more "surface-dwelling" groups that duergar treat the deep gnomes so terribly.

Elves can grow facial hair, but it isn't considered stylish or polite in most communities. Plus it takes them like a decade to grow a decent beard.

Halflings generally have the blood of multiple subraces in them, they just have certain traits more pronounced to establish their own subrace. They also have a loose collection of travelling lawmen expected to uphold justice in any halfling community and see to the people's well being. Caravans and permanent communities both exist in halfling culture; most communities are fine with their folk coming and going between the two.

Actually even Tolkien had some elves with beards. One of them in fact was a sailor who had quite a long one

[John Campbell]

Halflings get racially profiled because everyone knows they're all thieves "expert treasure hunters" "rogues".

Most shops have a "No shoes, no service" sign posted. Because see above.

If a halfling wears shoes, they can't make Stealth checks.

Kobolds are not in any way related to dragons.

Eating kobolds (it's surprising how many of the PCs this actually comes up with) will give you cobalt poisoning.

The goblin life cycle can be measured in rounds. That's why there are still goblins.

No one is really sure whether gnolls actually have a language, or if it's all just meaningless insane cackling.

Dwarves are Norse, dammit, not Scottish.

All hill giants have names that end in "-Bob", "-Jo(e)", or "-Sue".

[Hand_of_Vecna]

Illithids evolved from humans and their subtle manipulations have made sure that humans are the dominant race.

The thing that was killing them in the far future evolved from Gith.

[hymer]

Kobolds are not in any way related to dragons.

But their massive inferiority complex makes the thought extremely appealing to them. Dragons encourage this nonsense to make kobolds fanatically loyal, disposable minions.

Illithids evolved from humans and their subtle manipulations have made sure that humans are the dominant race.

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.

Gee, my inventions don't seem all that nice, do they?

[Millstone85]

Primus used to be a metal primordial who was also an epic artificer. The first great modron march successfully conquered the outer plane of pure law.

Carceri was the first lower plane. Devils are an offshoot of its original jailers, and demons of its original inmates.

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.

Now that "planes" from Magic: The Gathering are being adapted to 5e D&D, the Aether is totally another name for Spelljammer's Phlogiston.

Each crystal sphere has its own echo in the Feywild and in the Shadowfell.

Shardminds self-assemble from the debris of crystal spheres.

The creator of the couatls was, of course, Quetzalcoatl. He was also the lone good-aligned god of the yuan-ti.

Gnomes are descended from dwarves who settled in the Feywild.

Illithids are the degenerate descendants of aboleths.

No wizard made the owlbear. It is in fact related to the duckbeaver, also known as the platypus. Nature is just weird like that.

[Bohandas]

*Kobolds are a mix of dragon, goblin, and chihuahua

*Mustard gas is used in place of mustard in the abyss

*Slavery is the abyss is exclusively of the locked-up-in-some-guy's-basement variety. Chattel slavery is dependent on there being someone around who will help you recapture escapees instead of just laughing at your sorry *** or impulsively killing them. (Do bear in mind however that Grazzt's basement encompasses two entire layers of the plane, so him having a lot of slaves isn't inconsistent with this.)

*The Nine Hells have an extreme form of intellectual property law in which all of the words in the Infernal language, and even the individual letters, have owners and you run up a tab by talking or writing. The Abyssal language uses infernal script mostly to deliberately flout this.

*Gwynharwyf talks and acts like the title character from "Unikitty!"

*Powerful outer planar beings, especially when they aren't being observed, spend much of their time in some sort of a teance or stupor. Most deities only have about enough interesting stories about to cover a human lifetime but are far older than that and by all rights should be more interesting.

*the outer planes aren't so much infinite as they are unlimited. They represent alignments and ideals and empty ininhabited spaces can't really do that, and since the multiverse began a finite amount of time in the past there aren't enough sould to saturate an infinite plane. If the outer planes were fully realized in addition to being infinite then most astral color pools would lead to nowhere. Mount Celestia doesn't need a sky that goes on forever and Bytopia and Arcadia don't need ground that is infinitely deep. They do however need to be able to expand however far that they need to. The majority of the outer planes merely exist in potentia until explored or settled. If the outer planes were fully realized in addition to being infinite then most astral color pools would lead to nowhere

*Many structures and features on the planes were not built by either man or god, nor by conventional natural forces, but are rather manifestations of the plane itself. Crack houses have been known to spontaneously generate in the Abyss, and areas of Elysium have been noted to be beautifying themselves. This usually happens when nobody is looking.

*There is, in general, a very strong observer effect on the planes

*The Battle of Pesh was fought using magically enhanced weapons of mass destruction and other magics and technologies that have subsequently been lost.

*Pesh was not an area on Oreth, but a nearby planet that was pulverized into the nearby asteroid field (The Grinder) during the battle

*Olidammara's demesne in Ysgard is located between Big Rock Candy Mountain and Gangsta's Paradise

[King of Nowhere]

Vecna is not worshipped in dark basements by a handful of power-hungry cultists. Figuring out that more worshippers equal more power, he refluffed himself as a god of knowledge with a practical approach towards [evil] spells, and he is worshipped openly.
He may be having darker plans, though.

When alive, vecna was a kind of brilliant-but-lazy-and-easlily-distracted guy, quite like xykon.

In lands dominated by hextor, they wanted the peasant to be even poorer than usual, so they invented tin coins and lead coins, worth a fraction of a copper. If you own copper in hextor's lands, most people will consider you filthy rich.

In hextor's land, to make the people work more, they increased the lenght of the week. There is still only one sunday. Every once in a while, a leader will add another day to the week.
Currently they have 23 days, and counting. The extra days are all called monday, because everyone hates mondays.

The merchants of magic items are all members of a very powerful guild with a strong policy of mutual protection and retaliation.
How else would they avoid getting robbed by high level adventurers?
This also explains wht they all sell and buy for the same prices: monopolistic regime.

[Particle_Man]

Wait, I thought illithids being far future beings descended from aboleths was already canon.

[Millstone85]

Most of a god's power does not come from their worship. Rather, a god is the epic cleric of an ideal. This is why they are known as "god of [insert concept here]". The ideal itself needs believers. It manifests as a realm on an outer plane, where the gods of that ideal take residence. Having followers is still very important to a god, because that more personal faith anchors them to a humanoid sense of self. Without it, a god becomes stuck in the trance mentioned by Bohandas, their body eventually turning to astral stone.

Annam the All-Father and Moradin the All-Father are one and the same. After forsaking the giants, he made the dwarves. Of course, both races would call this a heresy.

Toril's current god of death is Charname, also known as Gorion's Ward and the Slayer of Sarevok. After the final showdown, he obviously chose godhood, dubious that the solars could truly lock away the great ocean of blood. And so Bhaal remains dead, because I didn't play through Baldur's Gate, Siege of Dragonspear, Shadows of Amn, and Throne of Bhaal, just for a 5e pantheon table to tell me "Lol, murder-daddy be back".

the outer planes aren't so much infinite as they are unlimited. They represent alignments and ideals and empty ininhabited spaces can't really do that, and since the multiverse began a finite amount of time in the past there aren't enough sould to saturate an infinite plane. If the outer planes were fully realized in addition to being infinite then most astral color pools would lead to nowhere. Mount Celestia doesn't need a sky that goes on forever and Bytopia and Arcadia don't need ground that is infinitely deep. They do however need to be able to expand however far that they need to. The majority of the outer planes merely exist in potentia until explored or settled.

Something similar is canon in 5e. The Outer Planes are essentially dreamscapes. Depending on your state of mind and the will of the powers that be, you could circle the base of Mount Celestia in a single day, or keep finding kingdom after kingdom. The Outer Planes are also said to have purely spiritual layers, beyond human senses and experiences, where distance is truly meaningless.

Wait, I thought illithids being far future beings descended from aboleths was already canon.

That's possible. I think D&D has had several versions of the illithids' origins.

[Bohandas]

People from other planar metropolises are unimpressed by Sigil. Much like how people from LA are unimpressed by New York and vice versa.

[Hugh Mann]

At some point all the gods got together and fixed the prices of all goods and services. They also meet every few centuries to vote on price changes.

[Constructman]

People from other planar metropolises are unimpressed by Sigil. Much like how people from LA are unimpressed by New York and vice versa.

What other metropolises are there? I know the City of Brass is one, but what others have been mentioned?

[JMS]

What other metropolises are there? I know the City of Brass is one, but what others have been mentioned?

4e had the bright city of Hevestar, home of the deities of civilization, the sun, and knowledge. Multiple in the 9 Hells, Grazzit's layers in the abyss, and a few more (Probably one on Mt. Celestia, IIRC)

[Bohandas]

There's also the City of Union, and the Githyanki capital, and the ekolid city of Zionyn in the Abyss, and the demesnes of the greater deities,

EDIT:
And also the Great Dismal Delve, the City of Glass, the Heavenly City of Yetsira, the Formian Central Hive-City, The goblin fortress cube Clangor, Dis, Grenpoli, Jangling Hiter, the Crawling City, etc.

[Spore]

Vancian magic was introduced to the world in a pact between Mystra and Asmodeus' most stingy accountant.

[KillianHawkeye]

Wait, I thought illithids being far future beings descended from aboleths was already canon.

I've never heard the "descended from aboleths" part.

[noob]

All forgotten realms gods are deeply evil (just look at what they do and you can not tell me they are not evil) but since it is the devils which invented the alignment detection spells to cause acts of hatred (which is why orcs pings evil: it is intended to make people hate orcs) they decided to make some gods ping good so that good people would still consider the possibility of following gods instead of becoming ur priests to weaken the gods. (it is also due to the devils that the mentality that makes ur priests pings evil since devils chose what pings evil and what pings good)

[Jay R]

The entire multiverse was created by a demented being as a place for his or her friends to amuse themselves. Most creatures only exist for his friends to slay by proxy, using creatures of their own.

The "gods" are as much a plaything of this entity as any other creature.

[Velaryon]

My personal canon: The Spellplague never happened in the Forgotten Realms, and nothing that takes place after it exists.

Ravenloft exists as its own demiplane, and while some pieces of it may have been drawn from other settings, they are no longer part of those places.

Vecna's phylactery is the Sword Of Kas. Think about it, Vecna was an epic-level lich by all accounts, and he made the sword for Kas because he trusted him. A FIghter, even a Vampire one, being able to permanently maim a lich of Vecna's caliber is absurd. So why then, did a sword that Vecna crafted manage to cut through all of his magical defenses and cut off his hand and gouge out his eye? Simple, because none of Vecna's magical defneses worked against the sword, because the sword contained Vecna's soul, and all those protection spells considered the soul a part of the caster who placed them. The reason the Sword has intelligence and hates Vecna and all his servants? Because Vecna's ego was so great. The soul in the sword resents that it is not in possession of all of Vecna's power and all that he is, believing itself to be as powerful and deserving, if not more so.

*Slavery is the abyss is exclusively of the locked-up-in-some-guy's-basement variety. Chattel slavery is dependent on there being someone around who will help you recapture escapees instead of just laughing at your sorry *** or impulsively killing them. (Do bear in mind however that Grazzt's basement encompasses two entire layers of the plane, so him having a lot of slaves isn't inconsistent with this.)

*The Nine Hells have an extreme form of intellectual property law in which all of the words in the Infernal language, and even the individual letters, have owners and you run up a tab by talking or writing. The Abyssal language uses infernal script mostly to deliberately flout this.

I especially love these and may well add them to my own personal canon.

[Hand_of_Vecna]

My personal canon: The Spellplague never happened in the Forgotten Realms, and nothing that takes place after it exists.

That isn't Canon? What else is "Demiplane of Dread" supposed to mean? In I Strahd we see the process of Barovia becoming part of Ravenloft and in at least one high level adventure perma-killing a Domain Lord can return the realm to it's native Prime. Was Ravenloft defanged in a newer edition?

[Vizzerdrix]

Halflings refer to other races as twicelings in a negative way. They also consider hobbit to be a fight on sight level insult.

[Bohandas]

*Halflings don't actually exist. That's why they're so non-integral to the standard settings that yhey could be removed without affecting anything; they're merely a shared delusion. And the ones that aren't hallucinations are actually heavily medicated kender

[John Campbell]

But their massive inferiority complex makes the thought extremely appealing to them. Dragons encourage this nonsense to make kobolds fanatically loyal, disposable minions.

I run kobolds as the old-school vaguely canine humanoids, not this new-fangled mini-draconian nonsense, so the notion that they're dragon-kin is absurd on the face of it.

[Bohandas]

*Sigil's relevance is entirely powered by the self-importance of its inhabitants. It is important only because they believe it is; only because of the power of belief.

*Xoriot is not a true plane, but rather a hole in Eberron's multiverse.

*The Ethereal plane still connects between the material and elemental planes just like it did in the old editions. It's still classed as a transitive plane, so it must go somewhere.

*"Saint" is Saint Cuthbert's given name. As a title it would make exactly zero sense in context.

*In the Nine Hells nearly everything is illegal, but if you fill out the right forms you can get a permit to do anything.

*The reason Geryon was deposed after the reckoning despite the fact that he was the only lord who did not rebel against Asmodeus is because he had already filled out and filed a notice of intent to rebel but did not follow througn on it.

*Most of the minions of most abyssal lords are more like groupies and hangers-on than actual underlings who follow orders. They follow the more powerful demon around and sometimes follow suggestions because entertainingly tragic things happen in the more powerful demon's vicinity and they want to see and to contribute to the awfulness and mayhem

[Particle_Man]

The entire multiverse was created by a demented being as a place for his or her friends to amuse themselves. Most creatures only exist for his friends to slay by proxy, using creatures of their own.

The "gods" are as much a plaything of this entity as any other creature.

I know that Gary Gygax wasn't perfect but calling him demented seems a little harsh.

[Luccan]

*Most often, (good) Paladins retire after an adventure or four. Being extremely hard to kill at low levels, coupled with most others' ability to die really fast kind of destroys the romance of adventure and can quite often lead to crises of faith ("Why did all my friends die and I lived? Did I fail my deity or did they fail me?" sorta thing). Plus, by then they've usually defeated whatever minor evil they were tasked with destroying in the first place; Good deities rarely expect a lifetime of service in such a soul crushing and dangerous field as "ultimate Good guy".

[Millstone85]

Ravenloft exists as its own demiplane, and while some pieces of it may have been drawn from other settings, they are no longer part of those places.

That isn't Canon? What else is "Demiplane of Dread" supposed to mean? In I Strahd we see the process of Barovia becoming part of Ravenloft and in at least one high level adventure perma-killing a Domain Lord can return the realm to it's native Prime. Was Ravenloft defanged in a newer edition?

In a sense, the Demiplane of Dread doesn't exist in 4e and 5e. Rather, places like the valley of Barovia are now referred to as the Domains of Dread, one of the features of a plane called the Shadowfell. They, however, still largely function as their own thing. 4e calls them isolated pockets. 5e calls them demiplanes. Really, it is more like the Shadowfell has misty portals to them.

Regarding regions being absorbed into Ravenloft, I am not sure what the problem is.

The Ethereal plane still connects between the material and elemental planes just like it did in the old editions. It's still classed as a transitive plane, so it must go somewhere.

That's canon in 5e.