#dnd-lore

1 messages · Page 90 of 1

true patio
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Giants are, in the simplest terms, the "first" mortal creatures. They aren't made of anything special, and are thus just what ammounts to really big humans physically.

Some giants have been attuned to the elemental forces much like dragons but that lore is mostly new 5e lore trying to make them more than they've been for the last forever.

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And most of those are more a result of training on the part of the giant, like how a human can become an adventurer.

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Their metaphysical nature is what's interesting. Being divinely blooded and related to a god and titans.

jagged apex
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also regarding giants, their best magic is rooted in runes, which bigby's describes as quote "When Annam created the giants, he also taught them language and gave them runes of power. These symbols are pictographs: each symbol represents a whole word or concept rather than a single letter or sound. Each rune holds latent magical power, much like the glyphs inscribed in magic circles of protection, teleportation circles, and magical traps like the glyph of warding spell. Thus, the first giants treated these runes as a sacred secret and rarely wrote them." end quote

obsidian knoll
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The best questions for clarity are "which canon?" And "what edition?"

merry rune
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FR and i don't much care which edition. I mix and match. Clarification is welcome but not always needed for my purposes.

jagged apex
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well then is kind of hard for us to help as each setting, edition, and medium has it's own if not multiple continuities in it's own, so even if you mix and match, it would be helpful if you at least specified when asking about the published lore even if you are just looking for things to spark your own ideas for your games

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cuz otherwise i feel you'd perhaps be more successful brainstorming in #dm-world-building cuz some people even in making their own worlds use the published lore or elements of it as a sort of starting point but otherwise customize the specifics to their liking, where as this chat is simply what is and isn't said in the published continuity of dnd's lore

obsidian knoll
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2e was a shining city on a hill for lore

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They also coincidentally had a shining city on a hill in the lore

feral lintel
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are there any named individuals associated with elementals? or at least are extremely knowledgable about them

grim siren
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Leaders of the Evil Elemental Cults.

jagged apex
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primordial elemental gods like kossuth, but if meaning elementals just in general, i am not aware of any, cuz most major figures with the elements tend to focus on just one element be they mortal or not, least to my knowledge

fading oasis
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Hey guys I have been making a DND series that takes place in the sky like Skyward sword or skybreakers from Metarunner and I just thought this question.

" Are there any sky islands or Floating worlds in Faerun? "

jagged apex
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not to my knowledge, but there are such things in the elemental plane of air

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though there use to be such things back during the days of the netherese empire but those have long since fallen

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so if wanting to make such a thing in faerun on the world of toril, you'd specifically be wanting to set it before karsus' folly which happened in -339 DR, otherwise to my knowledge the only "floating islands" in published materials would be in the elemental plane of air

jagged apex
grim siren
jagged apex
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didn't one of the enclaves that fled to the shadowfell and not on toril itself during the folly remain able to float? assuming i am remembering that correctly, perhaps something similar happened, with it later returning to toril

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cuz far as i know mystra's rules largely are to prevent new instances of epic magic from being used, and don't undo existing once just for arriving on toril, and the near destruction of the weave that caused magic to fail during karsus' folly i believe is what caused the enclaves to fall if i am not mistaken

modern mirage
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Can someone explain me the Ravenloft setting/lore without spoiling curse of strahd ? I just joined a curse of strahd campaign, I don’t know anything besides strahd is a vampire, thought it was just somewhere in the forgotten realms but it’s not which just leaves me confused, I need help please

autumn temple
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With as few spoilers as possible: It's a demiplane, a small self contained world with its own setting.

calm crest
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Ravenloft is one of the Domains of Dread, a twisted region of the Shadowfell controlled by mysterious entities called the Dark Powers.

modern mirage
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So how do people end up there ? Seems important to know since wouldn’t that like inform my characters like motivations and goals

calm crest
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Most end up there accidentally.

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Sometimes the Mists sweep across lonely places of Prime Material worlds, trapping travellers in the Domains of Dread.

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Almost as a rule, PCs are not native to the Domains of Dread.

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Chances are your character would be from Faerûn (or another setting, depending on your DM’s intentions) and stumbled in to it. It’s probably best just asking the DM how you got there and not study up on Ravenloft.

modern mirage
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Thanks~ that’s enough to know how to create my character

autumn temple
# jagged apex didn't one of the enclaves that fled to the shadowfell and not on toril itself d...

Thultanthar, the City of Shade, was in the Plane of Shadow during Karsus' Folly and was not directly affected. It returned (possibly for a second time) during the spellplague and tried to rebuild the Netherese empire. Eventually they ended up in a war with the similarly resurgent Cormanthyr, which ended badly for both sides when Tultanthar was brought to lay siege to Myth Drannor and Elminster crashed the floating city into the elven capital.

grim siren
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Lol I should scroll down more.

jagged apex
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the dark lords are equal parts ruler and victims, each domain basically ment to perpetually torment them for eternity where there one thing they truely desire will always be out of their grasp, the dark powers feeding on their suffering

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and the other people of the domains caught up in it when the would be dark lord is swept up, are basically collateral damage that the dark powers don't really care are caught up in this nightmare of a realm, also in the 5e cosmology the domains of dread make up a seperate/isolated portion of the shadowfell

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or to quote the description given in the 2024 dmg, which is setting agnostic
"In a far-flung corner of the Shadowfell drifts a hidden expanse of roiling mist and vague semireality. At this eerie edge of the multiverse, mysterious entities known as the Dark Powers collect the most wicked beings from across ages and worlds within inescapable, mist-shrouded demiplanes. In these shadowy prisons, the villainous beings become Darklords, able to exercise great power but confined to realms that twist their desires, capturing them in cycles of dread and despair.
Mists surround each of the Domains of Dread, making it difficult to leave one domain and even harder to find a path to another. The Mists rise and fall at the whim of the Dark Powers, and they can even slip across the planes to drag people unwittingly into the dread domains. Those who live in these domains ascribe all sorts of sinister stories to the Mists—any supernatural happening, inexplicable disappearance, or malicious force can be blamed on the Mists." end quote

modern mirage
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Thanks, didn’t need to know everything, all i really needed was Demi realm, characters from FRs, get there by accident, so I can create my character but thanks for caring :)

jagged apex
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strahd's domain is barovia which is described as quote "The towering spires of Castle Ravenloft loom above the valley of Barovia, which is ruled by Strahd von Zarovich, the first vampire." none of which spoils the story if you ask me, the domains collectively being called ravenloft is a bit of a misnomer born of the popularity and focus historically that barovia specifically has had over the years across editions

jagged apex
modern mirage
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I’d prefer FRs, it’s easier for me

jagged apex
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fair

calm crest
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To be fair Ravenloft was both the first Domain, both in canon and real life.

jagged apex
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yeah and even then i believe it was largely cuz of the branding being on those old books given the domain itself is named Barovia, and ravenloft is the name of the castle

calm crest
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Ravenloft is the setting in marketing. Domains/Demiplane of Dread is the name in-universe.

jagged apex
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the name just stuck to where it invoked that setting when most thought of it, though personally i preffer using the proper name, especially since calling it ravenloft can be misleading for those more familiar with the setting

jagged apex
calm crest
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It’s because Ravenloft was the name of the 1e module before it even became a named setting.

jagged apex
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but thati s getting a bit more into meta than lore so i'll leave it at that ^^;

jagged apex
calm crest
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And 2e’s setting guide is also called Ravenloft, with Demiplane of Dread as a subtitle.

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It’s also unclear if the Dark Powers can actually connect to independent settings like Athas or Eberron, or if they just make copies of portions of them.

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Granted, 5e Eberron is officially no longer self-contained for some reason.

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And we’ll see what’s done with 5e Athas, since it seems like WotC is gearing up towards that (even if VRGR had no mention of Kalidnay).

jagged apex
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far as i know it still is mostly, with the few ways known to it, not being common knowledge, then again i could be wrong

modern mirage
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Besides from Djerad Thymar their capital/kingdom where else would you find Dragonborn in FRs ? Living not just occasionally drifting by

calm crest
jagged apex
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like far as i know there is just that 1 in sigil via the big 50th anniversary

jagged apex
calm crest
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Lolth also has access to it through the Demonweb Pits in the WotC’verse.

jagged apex
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hmm, did not know that

jagged apex
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basically outside of their new homeland on toril, they are largely scattered all over the place, mostly with mercs

calm crest
jagged apex
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is one of those cases where there is no wrong answer or is no 1 singular answer

modern mirage
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What ? Guess that’s what I get for watching a 6 year old video :(

jagged apex
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yeah old info is gunna be dated and not necessarily have accounted for more recent lore, is just how time works irl

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but anything not directly contradicted is still valid

calm crest
jagged apex
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honestly given what is known historically of dragonborn culture i'd argue clan and family is more important than having their own empire or homeland, especially given the majority of their history back on abeir

modern mirage
jagged apex
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not reptiles

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dragons in general dnd lore are not reptilian they simply look it, their internal anatomy is closer to that of a predatory cat than a reptile, least far as i am aware that is the norm

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and while the history of the dragonborn and their origins is a bit of a mystery, they were to my knowledge previously mammals transformed into more draconic like beings

modern mirage
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That’s a semantic argument against my throw away mostly meaningless statement

jagged apex
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plus the their draconic connection is very weak

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sorry, certain misconceptions like that tend to be a pet peeve of mine, especially since the dragonborn are one of my personal favorite species in dnd

modern mirage
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They look like reptiles~ good enough for me to call them then, I’m not a zoologist

calm crest
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The Abeirite dragons basically made the Dragonborn look like them for the same reason that the Xanathar has henchmen who wear beholder hats.

jagged apex
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after killing all if not most of the primordials that were in charge of the world, cuz abeir being a world where the gods were not allowed, basically ment no holy civil war to tear apart the dragon empire thus chromatics and metallics on that world were presumably more united

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which i find neat cuz that is no small feat given most of them were on par with the gods at least according to what is now known as the dawn war

grim siren
modern mirage
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Yay! An answer

calm crest
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Presumably resilience to elemental forces comes in useful there.

grim siren
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They have been in Calimshan for decades and were present during her rise. Some dragonborn gravitate to Genie strongholds because of Elemental power.

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It would not be unrealistic to see a Dragonborn leading a Ward of Calimport or another city within Songal's Realm.

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Most capable ones would have helped her defeat a Dracolich set loose in the city of Calimport. Lots of good adventures ideas there. Could even spawn one up about the Dragonborn calling in favors for Songal to help them take back Tymanther.

modern mirage
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I just wanted someone where for my Platinum Cadre Dragonborn to live/come from since they obviously couldn’t live in Djerad Thymar even when it was populated

grim siren
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Calimshan is a great place.

modern mirage
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Since I wanted a family/clan not just some lone wondering Dragonborn

calm crest
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Yeah, as of 1501 DR, it definitely seems like the place most appealing for a Dragonborn community.

modern mirage
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Anyway~ thanks, you’ve been very helpful to me! :)

merry rune
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some great lore from you two last night. i was sleeping by then but i read through it

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on dragons and giants i mean

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always appreciated

merry rune
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i hope its not frustrating though. i dont want to annoy. im just letting you know that you did indeed help me

merry rune
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someone in general just asked an interesting question

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can a greatwyrm become a dracolich, assuming 5e FR

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is a greatwyrms soul altered in a way that makes lichdom at least conventionally impossible?

timid tendon
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Vivesh Nanashin, the Moon's Champion

timid tendon
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Port city

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The rest of the dragonborn in what remains of Tymanther is actually warded by the untheric god Enlil, whose Chosen convinced the leaders of the dragonborn nation to form a "mercenary contract" with them to protect them from Gilgeam

grim siren
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Is that in Heroes or Adventures of Faerûn?

merry crest
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Is there mentioned reasoning why some gods mentioned in SCAG aren't reprinted in the new Faerun sourcebook (i.e., Kossuth, Hoar)?

timid tendon
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reading the wiki (as much as a struggle it is to read Fandom) gives a lot more lore most of the time

calm crest
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Current lore is that Unther destroyed every trace of Tymanchebar that didn’t return to Abeir, except for the fortress-city of Djerad Thymar. The reason the port hasn’t been mentioned is because it either returned to Abeir as part of the Second Sundering or was razed.

timid tendon
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which means Gilgeam's forces killed one of their own gods :v

calm crest
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Yes, it appears that Unthalass was rebuilt atop Djerad Kathendi just as the port was built on the ruins of the original Unthalass (assuming the map isn’t intended as a retcon).

timid tendon
calm crest
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As far as I know Gilgeam has totally subsumed the rest of Unther’s pantheon as of 1501 DR.

timid tendon
calm crest
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Actually, looks like Kaoll is where DK used to be.

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I misremembered which river it was on.

uncut yacht
timid tendon
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the one where they lived in a godless world of dragon-tyrants

uncut yacht
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I wish that was kept as part of the lore, it would make sense, and then have them dilute overtime and spread more as a species rather than an individual gift from a dragon god.

uncut yacht
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Unless they rose up and defied them.

timid tendon
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that's what they did

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no gods, no magic

calm crest
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I mean, that’s entirely still canon for the FR.

timid tendon
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just a lot of dying dragonborn using scavenged titan artifacts

calm crest
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The PHB Dragonborn is just the setting neutral version.

timid tendon
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the dragonborn of Abeir call themselves Vayemniri, "Ash-Marked", after the volcano that one of their heroes activated to destroy several dragon tyrants at the cost of their own life

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the Aberian dragonborn lived their whole lives fighting against the slavery of their draconic masters

uncut yacht
timid tendon
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and when they came to Faerun, they experienced a world that had gods and non-oppressive dragons for the first time

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and now the dragonborn as a cultural identity is getting eradicated by another slaving tyrant once again 😔

calm crest
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Looks like every other god of the Untheric Pantheon is dead, has permanently left Realmspace, or assumed a different identity (Assuran/Hoar, possibly Tiamat depending on interpretation).

uncut yacht
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Or am I missing something here?

timid tendon
uncut yacht
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It's not one size fits all, I doubt every dragonborn culture is getting squashed.

timid tendon
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the ones that came from Abeir, which is most 4e dragonborn

calm crest
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Well, that was their only community on Toril.

uncut yacht
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Sure but that was how long ago?

calm crest
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About a century.

uncut yacht
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Exactly. A lot changes in a century.

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Even if not official, one would be remiss for thinking things stay 100% stagnant for 100 years.

calm crest
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Currently the only nation with a notable Dragonborn population is Calimshan.

timid tendon
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the dragonborn would still exist, but Tymanther as a culture would start dwindling save for the diaspora keeping it alive

calm crest
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And it seems that, culturally, those who’ve fled to Calimshan have begun to assimilate.

timid tendon
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so yeah, Tymanther is on the brink of annihilation against another slaving tyrant

there were other non Tymachebar/Tymanther Abeiran dragonborn that came to Faerun during the Spellplague though, a good chunk from that one continent (i think Laerkond?) but still under the tyranny of dragons

uncut yacht
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Tbf Tymanther was always a dictatorship, not exactly surprised it's going down the route of tyranny.

You set yourself up for failure.

uncut yacht
timid tendon
uncut yacht
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I was about to say "My dm from 3 years ago told me that" and am only now realizing how insanely untrustworthy that is.

timid tendon
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like, compared to Cormyr imprisoning a whole city of civilians alongside Shar cultists and the whole attempt at thought crime thing prevention thing, Tymanther being ruled by a military commander/monarch is less dictatorial in comparison

calm crest
uncut yacht
calm crest
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It’s more just that as soon as Unther returned from Abeir, the warmongering Gilgeam wanted “his” territory back.

uncut yacht
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Just because it's not as bad doesn't make it not a dictatorship.

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Sure the rotten apple isn't as foul as the rotten onion, but you shouldn't eat either.

timid tendon
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i don't think in any of the books ive read set in Tymanther has its government screamed "military dictatorship" vibes-wise

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in terms of actual things military dictatorships Do

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like conquering people

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or doing terrible things to its citizens

uncut yacht
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It's more that if you are led by a military commander, lack a voting system, and rule by one leader, you are definitely a dictatorship.

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Dictatorships aren't technically inherently evil either.

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Irenic Dictatorships, for example, strive for peace.

timid tendon
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seems a bit idealistic considering what a dictatorship entails

well irl government types are always worse than their fantasy versions (like a good number of monarchies)

i wouldn't call the conflict between Gilgeam and the remaining dragonborn of Tymanther an equal fight of equally awful groups though

uncut yacht
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Exactly it's idealistic bc fantasy is idealistic. So Tymanther as a dictatorship would be more idealistic than what it would realistically be like.

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I recognize the word Gilgeam, is that a gnome thing?

calm crest
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He’s the god-king of Unther.

timid tendon
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he's the one who came back to Faerun, saw the dragonborn existing in his slice of the Old Empires, then reestablished Unther by force

uncut yacht
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I spent 20 seconds looking, that place looks like it sucked.

calm crest
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Looks like Tymather went from confirmed extant in 1489 DR to completely conquered as of 1501 DR. Seems that Gilgeam had to intensify his grip on the nation to accomplish this and Unther has suffered terribly in the process.

timid tendon
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reduced to a single fortress city, completing the Second Sundering's removal of all traces of 4th edition additions to Faerun

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assuming that the Warlock Knights of Vaasa still exist

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assuming they still exist by lack of omission that must suck for Vaasa

calm crest
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I believe the Kingdom of Bloodstone is confirmed to be completely abandoned as of 1501.

uncut yacht
timid tendon
calm crest
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Damara exists, Bloodstone is just ruins.

timid tendon
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yeah, but Vaasa still exists too apparently
but no details on them aside from their status as neighbors

calm crest
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And Damara is ruled by a usurper.

timid tendon
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yeah, Yarin

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apparently he was assassinated by Artemis in the books but the old SCAG and the new Faerun book doesn't mention it

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so its up to other people (the players) to do it

uncut yacht
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Sounds like a fun sunday thing. Mainly bc I feel the aftermath would prove far more interesting than the buildup and action thereof.

calm crest
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The warlocks of Vaasa get an off handed mention, but not by name.

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I’m glad the Castle Perilous is still on the map, because where else are you going to find a dungeon with an above ground purple worm?

uncut yacht
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Tbh, probably any weird wizard's tower belonging to an obsessed collector.

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I mean they have to have somebody who collects weird critters and monsters, right?

calm crest
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Castle Perilous is a weird wizard’s tower. That of Zhengyi the Witch-King, lich and servant of Orcus, to be precise.

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Although he was destroyed in the only published level 100 adventure module to date.

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Icelia’s secret keep in the northeastern Sunset Mountains was probably the weirdest lich lair Faerûn has ever known.

timid tendon
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a lot of weird wizard lairs out there

calm crest
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Verily.

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(Although Icelia is probably retroactively a warlock, given her Rashemi origin.)

boreal gull
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Could someone tell me about the goddess Lliira?

unkempt merlin
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How what works exactly?

ionic rivet
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This channel is for discussing official D&D lore from official D&D materials.

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Check #channel-guide and the channel descriptions to see what channels there are and what their topics are

modern mirage
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How many Kobolds are there living in the monastery of dragons rest on Stormwreck Isle in the sea of swords ? (Guesstimation)

dire olive
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Just checking, there's no "floor" to the elemental plane of air, right?

stark mist
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I wouldn't think so, all my caimpains were the players went there it had no floor, there was the clasical floating islands but that was as close to something like that. Thats what i can find in the books anyways.

calm crest
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There’s no floor in that plane, just as the Elemental Plane of Water has no seabed.

feral lintel
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surprisingly, the plane of earth still has air dndLol

eager bay
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In lore, how is life, lets say, for a powerful devil lord in the Nine Hells or for a ancient fey in the Feywild? What do you think Primus does all day? How do you imagine a eternity in Arcadia?

desert aspen
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Why did Ao not intervene when Karsus’s avatar was cast

jagged apex
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cuz it was not his jurisdiction, mystra is ment to deal with her own problems and maintain the weave

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plus at the time the means of one becoming a god in the realms were more laxed compared to now a days, not to mention it was only on 1 world across the entire setting so it was not really effecting the overall balance of the cosmos in realmspace enough to warrant his involvement especially since mystra was already doing what she could to prevent the weave from being entirely annihilated

jagged apex
# dire olive Just checking, there's no "floor" to the elemental plane of air, right?

to my knowledge that is correct and the latest lore for it simply describes it as "The Plane of Air is home to constant winds of varying strength. Here and there, chunks of earth drift in the openness, many covered with lush vegetation. These earth motes serve as homes for djinn and other natives of the plane. Other creatures live on cloud banks infused with magic to become solid surfaces, supporting towns and castles.
Drifting clouds can obscure visibility in any direction in the plane. Storms are frequent, ranging from strong thunderstorms to fierce tornadoes or mighty hurricanes. The air is mild, except near the Para-elemental Planes at either end of the plane, where the temperature is more extreme. Rain and snow fall only in the part of the plane nearest to the Para-elemental Plane of Ice." end quote

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so closest thing to a floor is gunna be the various islands of earth that are just scattered across the place

dire olive
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I knew it! I knew there was ground but there wasn’t like a “floor”

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Ty

jagged apex
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though as it mentions, there is also some magic infused clouds that are gunna be as solid as concrete, so there is that but i'd imagine the more common hazard of the two would be the floating earth, since seems most such clouds would have buildings that would be a clear indication the cloud below said buildings are solid via being infused with magic

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historically though the vast majority of the plane is just a bottomless sky, which the newer lore does line up with, just pains a clearer picture and reminding you there are places you can just stand

dire olive
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Imagine the first few attempts of flying for a poor little Aaracokra

jagged apex
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well historically gravity was subjective at least in past editions in the elemental plane for air, so basically as long as you were careful of which way you considered "down" you could basically just ride the wind if i am not mistaken

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though this same reason made it a massive hazard to any mundane animals such as cattle you might bring with you to set up like a farm or something

storm dagger
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Yeah whatever direction you think is down is down

storm dagger
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For archfey probably mostly whatever it is that they enjoy as their realms are designed to make them happy.

storm dagger
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The actions of mortals don’t matter to him, and the actions of gods don’t matter so long as they are at least loosely in the interest of their portfolio.

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He basically had just one rule “don’t touch these tablets.”

calm crest
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Ao did intervene. He granted Karsus the domain of hubris for the few seconds in which he managed to stay a god before turning to stone and becoming a vestige.

storm dagger
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That’s not quite intervening, that’s doing his job

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Intervening would be making sure he stayed alive or stopping the attempt

calm crest
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I mean, granting a portfolio unique from the one he stole was an intervention. It would not have otherwise occurred.

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It’s a largely irrelevant intervention, as nothing came from it, but it was an intervention.

storm dagger
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That still doesn’t count as intervention to me. Intervention means you are trying to change the outcome.

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And I don’t believe he was

calm crest
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Intervention means you had an impact on the outcome. Again, had Ao not granted him the additional portfolio of hubris, he would’ve had an identical portfolio to Mystryl, just as what happens when other gods have had their power stolen. It’s a minor intervention, and one that did not change the Folly itself, but had a lasting impact on Karsus, causing him to become a vestige.

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I fully acknowledge that it’s a pedantic distinction.

jagged apex
jagged apex
# storm dagger Intervening would be making sure he stayed alive or stopping the attempt

that would be drastically outside of his concerns and character as an entity, not to mention it would be him doing the job of gods that he charged with governing those things, and literally the implication is that mystra was the only objectively wrong choice for the spell, had he targeted literally any other deity it likely would not have played out the way it did

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so arguably it is more so mystra's fault than it is Ao's that nobody intervened, plus to be fair this was the first spell of it's kind there was no way the gods could have reasonably been prepared unless they had been borderline paranoid or had looked into the future, which mystra arguably couldn't do cuz existing beyond linear time does not mean she exists beyond her death, while alive she could operate outside of her present, but not after, and mystra's goals were raver laxed even back then to where stifling the development of magic would have gone against her duty

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though part of the reason it happened is also meta so viewing it from strictly the lore can only explain so much

vapid blaze
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Dragonborns... Would they have cold blood or warm blood? Or would it depend on they're element?

Dragons are big winged lizards.... But they're also "dragons" so... I'm kinda curious

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Or would they just got like... Magical stuff going on

timid tendon
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Warm blooded, just like dragons iirc

vapid blaze
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Okii

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So when npc's call Dragonborns cold blooded and stuff...They failed a intelligence roll

calm crest
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Or they’re speaking metaphorically. Dragonborn sometimes have a reputation of being callous.

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Worth noting that dragons themselves are not reptiles.

vapid blaze
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Yea they're Dragons✨✨

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But yea also Metaphorically "cold blooded"

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Dragonborns are such a cool race

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I luv playin as dwarves tho

storm dagger
jagged apex
unkempt elbow
jagged apex
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historically i have heard best described that a dragon's internal anatomy, at least for true dragons, is closer to that of a big cat, only reptilian aspects kind of being the scales and maybe the eyes, either way largely being external features that make them seem reptilian, only one i believe is cold blooded is potentially the white dragon but more so do to it's affinity for elemental cold and less cold blooded as we would use it irl

gentle ravine
jagged apex
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i know but that was for older editions and was not gunna just gunna quote that stuff word for word

median furnace
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Hey I have a lore question. When helm and tyr were dead did paladins still swear oaths to them and worship them? Especially with tyr since it seems his death was less well known

#

I know paladins don't have to swear their oaths to a god but many still do

merry rune
#

the oath still has power

median furnace
#

I should of added I'm curious about clerics too. Did bahamut just fulfill the prayers that were sent to tyr?

#

Because it's not like every single worshiper knew the God was dead right?

hallow flax
#

Hey where do i learn bout all this lore cause I hear so much i only know lore from what ive heard and seen in campaigns idk how to learn the lore i aint got the books rn lol

merry rune
#

its fun but not always 100% accurate since it tends to include all editions in a mixed bag

barren portal
#

mind you thats only for one setting

merry rune
#

of course you can also buy books

hallow flax
merry rune
#

i agree

#

and yeah if you want a setting to look into, the "main" dnd setting is forgotten realms

#

nowadays

#

that wasnt always the case iirc

hallow flax
#

Well ill look into it i need tho lore for my campaigns to make more sense haha

jagged apex
#

eh, is less the main dnd setting and more so the most often used one in 5e

merry rune
#

thats what i meant by main

cyan monolith
#

Arguably, Greyhawk is the one most new players are going to see when delving into the core books for the first time. ... generally, you give a DM a map, and they're gonna wanna use it. Especially when it's the first poster map they've ever gotten.

merry rune
#

i have literally not seen a single adventure, game or anything that isnt ´forgotten realms from 2014 and even older stuff from before 2000

#

i know there are things and i know some names too but i havent ever seen them actually around in my media consuming, friends stuff and video games

#

greyhawk i only know from youtube lore videos where they mention it on the side as a little note before going back in for another 30 minutes of FR lore

#

i also much prefer greenwood to gygax

cyan monolith
#

Yep, @merry rune, 2024. To be fair, that's just the DMG, and there's adventures or hardbacks or whatever.
I just think new DMs are likely to use the DMG and it's poster maps, and then start getting stuff from various sources like DMsGuild or the internet. 🤷‍♀️ YMMV

merry rune
#

ymmv indeed?

#

never heard that one before. learnt 2 new things today

cyan monolith
#

That's not uncommon, @merry rune ... like, most people don't know that all the named Wiazrds in the spells of the PH are all members of the Circle of Eight.
Or that Heward's Handy Haversack was made by a famous organist.
Iron Bands of Billaro, Nolzur's Pigments, Tenser's Floating disk, etc. etc.

copper rivet
#

bigby's hands

merry rune
#

melfs acid arrow?

cyan monolith
#

Yep! Them too!

merry rune
#

my favourite spell in my video game as a kid

calm crest
merry rune
#

big green glow and a full satisfying noise on cast and on hit

cyan monolith
calm crest
#

At least Bigby had a canonical reason to become a Gnome.

feral lintel
#

death

cyan monolith
#

Death will do it, every time. 😉

merry rune
#

is mordenkainen also from greyhawk?

calm crest
#

As far as I know all of the other seven of the Eight are Wizards, though.

calm crest
#

Probably the most famous mage of Oerth.

#

Only Tasha/Iggwilv rivals his infamy.

cyan monolith
#

@calm crest ... to be fair, Otto has basically always looked like an effette dwarf, even when he was described as human, and his lore is often music-related even before being described as a bard.

merry rune
#

i actually genuinely dont get this

#

do all these people also exist in fr or is it nonsensical that the spells are named after them in fr too?

#

is it like a multiverse thing?

calm crest
cyan monolith
calm crest
#

None of them have “copies” in Realmspace or anything. They just travel the planes.

merry rune
#

so the circle of 8 exists in both settings then?

calm crest
#

It only exists on Oerth. Its members just travel.

merry rune
#

yeah i meant the members travelling

#

what names are there to know for FR? volo is FR right?

calm crest
#

He is, yes.

merry rune
#

elminster is FR too iirc and drizzt

#

then you have cyric and the baldurs gate series characters

cyan monolith
#

@merry rune ... many things have been written where like plane-travellers bring spells with them to other places.
And Elminster and Mordenkainen have been known to meet on Earth and share spells and drinks.
The Wizards Three.

calm crest
#

Traditionally, Oerth, Toril, and Krynn are the big three settings of the core D&D multiverse, closely linked by spelljamming routes.

merry rune
#

what is krynn?

calm crest
#

Dragonlance’s world.

cloud marten
#

imo it would be fun to see Mordenkainen vs. Elmister vs. Raistlin

cyan monolith
#

You're not the first to say that, @cloud marten ... that conversation has a loooooooong and storied history. LOL

cloud marten
calm crest
cyan monolith
#

At least in third edition, Mordenkainen was "technically" a higher level caster (27th) than Elminster, but Elminster had the whle "Chosen of Mystra" thing going on and whatnot.

merry rune
#

ah this is the weird part of dnd lore to me

calm crest
#

Raistlin definitely comes out on the short end of the stick, due to less inflated power levels there.

merry rune
#

fun to hear a bit about though

calm crest
#

In the 5e continuity, Mordenkainen appears to be weaker than Elminster.

merry rune
#

dragonlance is probably the setting i know the least about out of the three

cyan monolith
#

@merry rune .... it's surprisingly easy to read stuff, if you just kinda start way out big, and then learn more and more as you go. Kinda like anything, general stuff first, then specifics.
Or one topic at a time. Like choosing a wiki, and just rabbit-hole from one link to the next.

calm crest
cloud marten
calm crest
#

To be fair, the other two have regularly thwarted gods.

cyan monolith
merry rune
#

im a purist and minimalist in many things so getting completely dug into one setting is my favourite approach

#

but i like to know the rough surroundings too

cyan monolith
#

Hey, there's nothing wrong with liking the FR. It's a great setting!

calm crest
cyan monolith
#

Well, TBF, @calm crest ... she's never been in the PH before now.

cloud marten
merry rune
#

are dragons massively different in that one?

feral lintel
#

it leans more on the metallics vs chromatics

#

since its Tahkisis (Tiamat) vs Paladine (Bahamut)

cyan monolith
#

@merry rune , they're a giiiiiiiiant part of that setting.

merry rune
#

so the chess game is named dragonlance right?
is that like those 2 factions?

#

good vs bad dragons

jagged apex
#

no

calm crest
#

It also features draconians, the eggs of metallics twisted into servants of Tiamat.

jagged apex
#

you are thinking of dragonchess

merry rune
#

oh right

#

does abeir have anything to do with greyhawk/krynn or is abeir fully FR?

cloud marten
#

I love that there is novel about group of draconians set during Summer of Chaos

cyan monolith
#

Interestingly .... also Dragonchess was invented by the original author of D&D (Gary Gygax) in 1985 and is featured in Greyhawk (and now, all over).

jagged apex
#

the rivalry between bahamut and tiamat, as well as their aspects and the their children, ie metallic and chromatic dragons respectively, is basically a massive holy civil war among dragon kind, that is why on the world of abeir where gods, including them, were absent, no such divide formed

#

abeir is part of the forgotten realms setting speciifcally

cyan monolith
#

Abier-Toril is a planet name of FR.

jagged apex
#

yeah, abier is the sister world to toril, the two previously being one world, known as Abier-Toril

merry rune
#

yeah i wondered if maybe abeir toril splitting was gygas and greenwood doing their own settings each or something but no

jagged apex
#

also greyhawk and krynn are two entirely seperate settings

cloud marten
#

why are gods absent there?

merry rune
#

indeed

cyan monolith
#

Congential twins separated to float around the sun! 😝

jagged apex
#

the main world of the greyhawk setting is called oerth

jagged apex
cloud marten
#

so what is Dawn War?

jagged apex
#

basically the primordials and gods were fighting over the world, so it was split in 2 and one given to each side, the primordial's one being put out of phase with reality

cyan monolith
#

Yeppers. Oerth and it's main [area of the] continent the Flanaess are kinda like .... Toril and ... the Sword Coast(?).
[editied]

jagged apex
#

krynn is the main world of the dragonlance setting

cyan monolith
#

And Dragonlance continent is .... Ansalon(?)

calm crest
jagged apex
#

yes, at least according to the map included with the 5e adventure/sourcebook

#

the main continent focused on toril is faerun these days, sword coast is more like a territory, within that continent

calm crest
#

The Sword Coast is to Faerûn as the Iberian Peninsula is to Europe.

cloud marten
#

they do like to focus on that one area for some reason

calm crest
#

It’s because all of the biggest cities are there.

jagged apex
#

well historically some other parts have not aged well to put it likely, but the reasons more so go beyond just lore so best left at that

cloud marten
#

I do remember Maztica being fun one

#

granted they did it better in MtG with Ixalan

merry rune
#

i think sword coast is also very popular because it really does have the fantasy

#

not to mention familiarity can be a good thing. exploring another adventure in a region you feel you know stuff about is nice to me

#

being sent across the entire globe for every adventure and expansion is kind of intimidating to me

#

its also less work to not have to constantly flesh out new areas

jagged apex
#

eh, if you mean what i think you mean, it is largely a misconception, one that personally annoys me

merry rune
#

you mean the first part?

cloud marten
#

there is more to fantasy than just Tolkien style fantasy

merry rune
#

definitely

jagged apex
#

i mean the misconception of dnd simply being medieval fantasy, it has never been that, not just that at least, unless you force it to for your games

merry rune
#

sword coast is what i would consider mainstream fantasy

cloud marten
#

not even FR is fully medieval fantasy

jagged apex
cloud marten
#

GH is closer to that

jagged apex
#

artificers, guns, tech in general, neither are these things are out of place in dnd, let alone toril specifically, despite popular belief

merry rune
#

yeah that stuff exists

#

i think its pretty commonly included in what i mean by mainstream nowadays

#

some clockwork tech is pretty frequent

#

flying a spelljammer into the astral plane with gith is a bit more out there but you have to come across that for it to matter

jagged apex
#

not really

#

less common, but not "out there"

cloud marten
#

note that FR also has some renaissance things

jagged apex
#

the main reason spelljamming is not as common on toril is largely cuz spells previously used to make spelljamming helms and the like were lost

timid tendon
#

Forgotten realms is very gonzo if you look outside its common assumptions

#

DnD in general too

jagged apex
#

yep

timid tendon
#

Theres a prevalent cultural assumption of what "real fantasy" is that tries to ignore or downplay the Weirder parts of dnd or faerun specifically

jagged apex
cloud marten
#

I admit that I used to have that miss conception

merry rune
#

spirit of the times

#

or maybe its just that so many other systems exist

timid tendon
#

what dnd Is and what its current iteration sells itself as (and what its massive culture percieves it to be) is often at odds

dark comet
#

I don't disagree, but say more?

timid tendon
#

anachronistic fantasy with sci fi and horror elements, ruleswise combat-heavy
sold as a "you can do anything" product even if its current ruleset (5e) is skewed towards combat and resource management

cyan monolith
#

That’s not uncommon in Greyhawk, either.
It was originally very historical fantasy genre … but then it just got (or rather, made) more and more tropes.
While there’s only a certain tiny, tiny number of people with firearms (and they’re by divine fiat), there’s also lasers and robots in far distant corners, and a crashed spaceship, and Spelljammers, and good liches, and a toad deity, and a talking goat in politics, a half-demon demigod ruling a nation, half-dragon people, etc. etc.

timid tendon
#

yeah

cyan monolith
#

It’s there if you look for it, if you look past the most common stuff.

dark comet
#

Yeah, I can agree that D&D tries to sell itself as "you can do everything", but really should be "can do a lot of things".

timid tendon
#

some have an easier time doing that than others (spellcasters), without asking the DM to adjudicate new rules for it

merry rune
#

advertisement will never be accurate because frankly, people dont listen to accurate

#

they listen to what sounds the best and unless all companies advertised accurately from now on, i dont see it changing

jagged apex
#

sounds you are a bit off topic, remember, this channel is for published lore, talk about real world things, even if dnd, is meta anbd beyond the scope this channel is ment for so it may be better talked about in #dnd-discussion

cyan monolith
#

So, touching back to the conversation yesterday about similarities between settings, and what's from where ...

#

So, I mispoke a little in comparing the Flanaess to the Sword Coast.
The Flanaess is basically the campaign area of the larger continent, it's not the continent, itself. So it's the main part or region most frequently seen/used/whatever.
But I think it's like:
Oerth > Oerik > Flanaess
Toril > Faerûn > Sword Coast

merry rune
#

but then isnt that exactly right?

#

no misspeaking there

cyan monolith
#

Both are on the coast, Flanaess faces east, Sword Coast faces west.
There's other ancient empires, pre-Columbian Central American-ish analogs in both , there's steppe hordes, Asian-inspired (though I will agree that they did better with those in contemporary products).
There's a lot of similarities to both settings.
It's just their narratives stories took them in diverging directions.

#

@merry rune ... I do believe that does become a correct comparison.(?)
I'm not sure if you were asking me, or confirming for me.

merry rune
#

yeah i meant your comparison was pretty decent if the > > thing was right

jagged apex
# cyan monolith Both are on the coast, Flanaess faces east, Sword Coast faces west. There's othe...

originally in the forgotten realms Ed Greenwood designed the forgotten realms settings without real world analogs or inspirations to it's cultures, those are largely things added by other authors and or wizards of the coast to the published version of the setting over time, just something that often seems to be overlooked or just not known to some that i feel is worth noting. not sure if gary gygax was the same with greyhawk or not though

grim siren
#

Posted this before. Worth mentioning this again.

For those not old enough to remember the Realms when it was first released. The entire idea of it was that it was a world with connections to our own. A lot of the myths, legends, and gods bled into our own. But that connection was forgotten in modern times.....hence the "Forgotten" Realms. The idea was that Elminster still made trips to visit Ed and provide him with tales and lore about The Realms. Ed was just the "conduit" for Elminster.

So some similarity between FR and our world was intentional. But TSR and WoTC brought in people who added to the Realms with more explicit clones of real world cultures. Ed had literally zero control over this.

Mulhorand (ISBN 0-88038-821-8), was chiefly developed by Scott Bennie, who wrote:

Mulhorand was created by Ed as their land of origin. When TSR Inc. hired me in 1989 to write of those lands, I was told to base them on the ancient earth empires of Egypt, Babylonia, and Greece. I did the work according to the specs I was given, though I twisted them to reflect their antiquity, whittled down the vast pantheons to reflect their decline.

Ed has since gone on record numerous times stating that the printed versions of the Old Empires and many real world rips were straight up out of his control.

The Horde (ISBN 0-88038-868-4) was made entirely by David Zeb Cook, who also had a hand in Kara-Tur. Again not Ed Greenwood.

The Gur, were created for the Heroes Lorebook (p. 60. ISBN 0-7869-0412-7.) by Dale Donovan and Paul Culotta and expanded on by Troy Denning, and Dave Gross.

cyan monolith
thick trout
#

Where did Sun/Solar Dragons come from?
Do they fall under the chromatic category?
Were they made by any deity?

obsidian gate
#

they are from spelljammer and neither chromatic nor metallic

#

they aren't associated with any god directly as far as I can tell.

jagged apex
thick trout
#

I wasn't aware if, given the mythology of the dragons in DND, they were connected in any way to Bahamut, Tiamat, etc.
Or if they are just their own strange thing

jagged apex
#

they at least in the realms tend to be of a more benevolent nature, at least relatively

#

well being connected mythologies for dragons are not always universal and can vary from setting to setting, most likely theory would be presumably they were created by Io aka Asgorath, the creator god and head of the draconic pantheon

#

while not metallics, behaviorally, they are more similar to the metallics, sort of filling a similar niche

#

and only real info regarding their creation is their ecology, regardless of the edition far as i can find, so we just know their life cycle and way they live, nothing about them in regards to mythology or that

#

in 5e, they seem to be implied to just be naturally born at least in some stars, to partially quote their lore from the 5e spelljammer books "A solar dragon (also known as a radiant dragon or a sun dragon) is born in the heart of a star. It divides its time outside its lair between patrolling its territory and hunting for food. The dragon has a serpentine body, a pair of ventral limbs ending in long fins, nebulous wings that give off light, and gleaming, multicolored scales. It can see clearly even in intensely bright light." end quote

thick trout
storm dagger
#

All this Dragon Talk is making me want to chat about Eberron’s dragons

#

They are mostly similar to their main D&D counterparts, they are still mostly solitary and keep to areas that agree with them

#

But in terms of morality they are quite different

#

A gold dragon is just as likely to be evil as a red dragon is, and the dragons as a whole tend towards being neutral

#

They are also the strongest force on the planet ruling their own continent and overall keeping better in touch with each other l.

#

The dragons also tend be invested in a thing called the Draconic Prophecy that tells the paths that the world can take, and devote a lot of time to studying it or deciphering it.

jagged apex
#

honestly, they are not really like their counterparts beyond biology and game mechanics

#

cuz in eberron dragons have their own history and one that does not lend one kind toward any one alignment as i recall

#

the wiki describes it as a map to all possible futures, in relation to the world of eberron at least

#

and a lot of the differences in eberron is likely do to it's self contained cosmology

unkempt merlin
#

i mean, they are very much similar to dragons in other settings

#

Its just that all the personality traits are spread across all the dragon types

storm dagger
#

Yeah and stuff like Black Dragons still live in swamps and the like

unkempt merlin
#

ol Rhashy sassy my beloved

storm dagger
#

The most notable Eberron Dragon group is the Chamber. Which is devoted to studying the Prophecy and ensuring its paths go down ways the Dragons view as desirable while avoiding things they don’t like.

#

They are Champions of the status quo in a way. The status quo being that Dragons are the dominant species on Eberron. The lives, nations, and wars of other creatures don’t really matter except in how they may relate to the prophecy.

unkempt merlin
#

The status quo is (for the most part) "keeping the Overlords sealed"

#

How that manifests can vary massively due to the nature of the prophecy

storm dagger
#

The Arch enemy of the Chamber are the Lords of Dust for the reason as stated above

#

The Lords of Dust desire freedom for the Fiend Overlords

unkempt merlin
#

The ol "a dragon now is going to burn down this village because in 300 years a descendant from someone who survived is going to be required to prevent a plague from taking hold in the demon wastes" type stuff

storm dagger
#

Generally dragons will try to avoid big moves like that unless things are urgent or desperate.

unkempt merlin
#

Yes and no. It depends on the nature of the prophecy

#

Its been talked about a fair bit within the lore

storm dagger
#

The chamber and Lords of Dust have the exact same means of generally trying to remain in the background to manipulate the prophecy

unkempt merlin
#

Indeed they have the same means and while they can often remain in the background of events without being identified, its been hinted at that a large number of historic events have been triggered by the intervention of the LoD or Chamber - both blatantly and subtly

jagged apex
#

my favorite bit of eberron dragons is the story of house Vol

#

like apparently neither dragons nor elves were a fan of the two races mingling so they exterminated the entire house, or at least attempted to

#

sad part is at least some info describes this mingling was in an attempt to end the war between the dragons and elves

unkempt merlin
#

it was less about the two of them not being a fan of the mingling and more that a half dragon with the dragonmark of death would've been

#

devastating. To say the least

jagged apex
#

yeah i know, but still rather sad

#

and all the more interesting because of it, at least in my opinion

storm dagger
#

The Dragon Elf war was apparently cause of some manipulation on the part of the Lords of Dust.

sweet quail
#

How much control does a human transformed into a werewolf have? Can they try to speak, or show restraint while attacking?

#

I want to show them struggling to suppress their instincts, but not sure if that’s how it works in the lore

timid tendon
#

it was a black dragon in Eberron who taught the orcs the art of druidism in preparation for an invasion of aberrations

calm crest
storm dagger
#

Those who embrace it gain control over the transformation, but their outlook becomes more bestial and sinister.

feral lintel
#

if their lycanthrope curse leans more on the evil side at least

jagged apex
#

that is why they typically have certain alignments associated with certain lycanthropes, the curse forces you into that mindset in addition to just instincts unless you embrace it

#

and this may just be in the forgotten realms but far as i know, if you resist the alternate personality the curse will basically have in control when you transform, will go after and kill those close to you, like loved ones and the like, so resisting it without a cure readily available puts one's loved ones in danger potentially

sweet quail
jagged apex
#

they are not the same as the animals they resemble

#

the mindset thing is mainly used with the typical werewolf i think just as an example

jagged apex
# sweet quail Do you apply that mindset shift to Werebears and wereravens? I find it so odd th...

the latest setting agnostic lore for werebears is "When threatened or compelled by magic, werebears shape-shift from their humanoid forms into mighty bears or hybrids of those two forms. They scare off or sabotage those who threaten the wilds, and they frequently aid Fey, druids, or spirits of the wilderness, as many owe their magical nature to such forces. Werebears take the shape of bears common to the regions in which they dwell, with brown and polar bear forms being common." end quote from the 2024 monster manual for 5e, wereravens i am not sure as they are often seemingly only encountered in ravenloft/the domains of dread

#

the latest published lore i know of for wereravens describes their personalities as "Wereravens are secretive and extraordinarily cautious lycanthropes that trust one another but are wary of just about everyone else. Although skilled at blending into society, they keep mostly to themselves, respect local laws, and strive to do good whenever possible." end quote, make of that what you will, else idk any more than you do

little wind
#

wait earth, as in the earth we live on is cannon and exists in the forgotten realms universe?

calm crest
#

D&D has had multiple distinct versions of Earth.

little wind
#

I mean like good old, third planet from the sun in the Milky Way earth

calm crest
#

The Heroes of the Realm, featured in the D&D cartoon and as pre-gens in recent 5e’24 modules, were from Earth, having been drawn into the Realm after riding on a rollercoaster in the 80s.

#

As previously mentioned in this channel, Elminster regularly meets with Ed Greenwood.

jagged apex
#

earth is not in the forgotten realms setting, but it is in the dnd multiverse

calm crest
#

Creatures from Earth, notably foxes and the ancestors of the Untheric and Mulhorandi people are prominent in the Forgotten Realms, however.

jagged apex
#

basically dnd's multiverse has it's own version of our earth, that is how polka came to waterdeep, one of my favorite bits of lore relating to this element of the setting and dnd's multiverse as a whole https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QTFgWClkWzc

jagged apex
calm crest
#

Technically there seem to be at least two Earths in the core D&D multiverse: the one where archmages and Greenwood meet (which is probably also where the Heroes of the Realm came from) and Masque of the Red Death’s Gothic Earth.

jagged apex
calm crest
#

In the Mystaran multiverse, there are also at least two different Earths: the fictionalized France featured in Château d’Amberville, and the (problematic) take on a contemporary Chicago and New York in The Immortal Storm.

#

And if the AD&D adaptation of Conan can be counted, which it probably doesn’t, then that’s another Earth.

jagged apex
#

in short, in a potentially infinite multiverse, earth has proven to exist in the published continuity of dnd's multiverse multiple times, be it in one form or another

#

interesting part about earth in dnd is that our solar/wildspace system depending on if you wanna use irl or dnd terms, is basically one massive dead magic zone but in the past was implied we had magic, so that is another fun tid bit

calm crest
#

The presence of Odaire in the Domains of Dread appears to confirm that Gothic Earth still exists independently of the other Earth that more closely resembles our own.

jagged apex
#

also part of why the people who would become the untheric and mulhorandi people, were able to be abducted was cuz since earth had no magic, humans from earth had no connection or talent for magic, so basically was people with magic doing what they wanted to people who had no magic

#

so not sure if the implication i mentioned recalling earlier is misleading or something that came later

somber island
#

Any good places to learn lore and info about creatures in DND without their stats?

calm crest
#

The Forgotten Realms wiki is a pretty good resource, unless you’ve got a specific non-FR setting in mind.

somber island
barren portal
somber island
# barren portal mind you, that is only for the forgotten realma

Yeah our campaign is entirely homebrew, but the DM is relatively new to DnD and DMing and none of us have much knowledge of the cosmology of the game, as a past DM i can help with the rules but struggle with the flavor aspects(I wasnt a great DM😅 ). Only thing I knew was most campaigns occured in the Material Plane. But that's as far as my knowledge went, I thought Faerun, Ebberon, Greyhawk, were continents on a planet "labeled" The Forgotten Realms. idk, i never put much thought into that stuff as most of the campaigns i ran before didnt ever leave Sword Coast. So, character creation/backstory has gotten a bit hard, as nobody knows for certain whether or not the campaign is occuring in the Forgotten Realms, but it's slowly getting sorted out. Just trying to research Drow in the meantime as my character background has led to me having some extra knowledge on them, but I don't want to rekindle my knowledge of monster stats, as I struggle with metagaming, so I'm trying to avoid any stat stuff.

calm crest
unborn pollen
#

can there be NEUTRAL lich? im aware of Archlich

autumn temple
# unborn pollen can there be NEUTRAL lich? im aware of Archlich

the good old days™, when high level druids just became immortal...
More seriously: Generally the act of becoming a lich is inherently evil, but the existence of archliches and baelnorns implies that there are ways to achieve a similar state of being without dragging oneself through the moral mud. As such I don't see any reason that there can't be Neutral liches. They'd be rather rare though.

timid tendon
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depends on which setting and edition lore you're drawing from

there's a fun part of 4e era lich lore where its implied that the "standard" path to lichdom (which involves soul-guzzling and mass sacrifice) was seeded in the Material Plane by Orcus, Prince of Undeath, so that more and more powerful mages end up becoming his thralls. The less destructive, more free will-granting path to immortality, archlichdom, was rarer in comparison, possibly even scrubbed from history, which makes it a unique path for a player character to discover

jagged apex
calm crest
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(Other than Neutral Evil ones, at least.)

north vault
true patio
# unborn pollen can there be NEUTRAL lich? im aware of Archlich

The problem is usually neutral characters don't exactly have strong enough moral convictions to be willing to put themselves through an unliving hell just to survive or accomplish a goal.

Evil characters seek unlife for their own selfish goal, good characters just want to survive long enough to see their selfless mission to completion. A neutral character is usually disinterested in anything to do with either, that being the defining characteristics of neutrality.

Instead neutral characters gain immortality by other non-undead methods. Usually something similar to a personal enlightenment unlocking some connection to the universe at large turning them into an outsider or fey or something

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Point of order: undead immortality sucks as a form of immortality

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No food, no touch, no life in your immortality. All mixed with constant soul crushing agony of whatever brand of unliving hell you happen to be experiencing. Lichdom for example is like metaphysically hanging off an infinitely tall cliff with a monster, either a literal demon or just the cosmic forces of Entropy inherent in the plane of negative energy, constantly inhaling hurricane force winds to pull you off the cliff and eat you. With the only way to lessen but not remove the winds is to throw someone else into the maw.

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So anyone willing to face that hell willingly would have to be someone of strong conviction and will.

patent vault
true patio
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Ambition is not what I said

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I said that neutral people are generally unwilling to self sacrifice to that degree.

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But this seems to be a moral subjectivity argument than an objective "how the game defines these terms" discussion so I'll leave it as simply "it doesn't matter what you think. That's just how the people who wrote the alignment system determined."

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My own moral position on the subject is that Alignment is just one metric by which to measure a character. And a pretty bad one at that.

woven bronze
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How are paladins portrayed in the forgotten realms? Like do they make oaths to actual entities, do they have organizations or are they more loose

feral lintel
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its a mix, it really depends on the individual

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most are dedicated to gods though

brave sequoia
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Ok the land mass Osse what is known about it?

grim siren
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A little bit less than nothing.

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Osse, is a far eastern continent that has spirit shamans. The people are called Osselander by foreigners and Ossrim to themselves.

There was once a great hero in Osse named Tumbarum. And once an Ossrim named Gunggari Ulmara came to Faerûn and ja featured in the novel, Lady of Poison.

WotC self described the land as Fantasy Aboriginal Australia and New Zealand but that is uncomfortable for a whole host of reasons.

woven bronze
grim siren
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There were cults of genie worshippers in ancient Calimshan.

wind locust
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What is the most populated city in Faerun.
If there a list of all the villages and settlements?

calm crest
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Waterdeep is the biggest city.

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As far as I know it’s one of the largest non-planar cities in the core D&D multiverse.

timid tendon
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it always seemed so small to me with how the maps wanted to portray every inch of it

storm dagger
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It apparently has a population around 2 million in the city arnd around the local area.

wind locust
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Does where you character comes from matter in most games or is it just a its there type of thing?

jagged apex
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there are too many factors for there to be a universal answer, it can matter depending on the setting, the gm, ect...

fervent grail
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Kinda wondering how to fit an Illrigger into a Forgotten Realms campaign (if I opt to play one), and how to reflavor one or two of the subclasses far as their respective Archdevils go.

feral lintel
timid tendon
fervent grail
timid tendon
fervent grail
# timid tendon Hm true Tho you could find an equivalent archdevil that fits their vibes What do...

Sutekh is the Lord of Blood, and the Sanguine Knights follow him. They’re a subclass built around blood manipulation and support. Using their enemies’ blood and life essence to power their abilities (mechanically they can use enemies blood to heal allies or buff them. You also get an ability at lvl 3 that lets you track creatures with blood within 120 feet of you)
The precepts for the Sanguine Knights is: Their Strength is their weakness; Sin demands suffering; Loyalty Rewarded; Mercy is power

feral lintel
timid tendon
jagged apex
# fervent grail Kinda wondering how to fit an Illrigger into a Forgotten Realms campaign (if I o...

i could see Lilith being able to work into such a role a bit more cleanly cuz how old and obscure she is not to mention how broad her powers are described https://forgottenrealms.fandom.com/wiki/Lilith_(archdevil)
alternatively there are some archdevils of the past that we only know the name of and thus could easily be a replacement of sorts https://forgottenrealms.fandom.com/wiki/List_of_archdevils#Archdevils_of_Cania
else some exiled one that lives else where i feel could be fitting include Malkizid https://forgottenrealms.fandom.com/wiki/Malkizid

timid tendon
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i trawled through the Archdevil list on the FR wiki for "blood" and all i got was "blood-red skin" "blood-stained cloaks", etc

jagged apex
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is honestly rather tricky otherwise cuz sangamancy is not really something explored in forgotten realms to my knowledge or most non 3rd party materials, so you more so would be better off trying to find a being who is ambiguous with their abilities

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cuz the only ones i know of historically are beings who are vestiges, else the main realms being associated with blood i am aware of is bhaal, the god of murder

jagged apex
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otherwise i'd suggest working with your dm to work this "Sutekh" entity into a position within the existing structures of the hells which talk of would be best done if anywhere on this server probably in #dm-world-building

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else, the name is historically, in our own world according to the internet at least, associated with Egyptian deity Set, who does exist in the realms https://forgottenrealms.fandom.com/wiki/Set though he has nothing to do with the 9 hells to my knowledge

fervent grail
jagged apex
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mostly farmers, woodcutters, miners, ect...

feral lintel
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of varying species/walks of life. Mostly Dwarves or Humans

jagged apex
merry rune
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ah the pain. i want to run that so much

jagged apex
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honestly an easy enough justification would be being a sellsword, as in more recent times they are pointed out to basically found all over the place

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a sellsword is more or less a mercenary

merry rune
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is there a specific reason for the goliath question? there may be some culturally or location-based relevant helps

jagged apex
merry rune
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nevermind campaign spoilers, though extremely minor to the extreme, but better be safe

unkempt merlin
jagged apex
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far as i know adventures released involving Phandalin as the main location are fairly self-contained to the surrounding area

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that said a dm is able to change things especially if weaving an adventure into part of an existing campaign in that setting

feral lintel
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This channel is for official lore

nimble belfry
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Oh

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my bad

merry rune
nimble belfry
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Ok thanks ! And

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I’m actually so sorry

merry rune
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not like you hurt anyone

lean nimbus
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Are Red Wizards 100% evil?

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The description from the book kind of suggests they are some type of Neutral or at very least Lawful/Neutral Evil

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They seem to be more about gathering knowledge at all costs

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And just happen to have a very evil leader/king/tyrant/whatever

forest basin
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Historically they owed their power to being cruel slavers, demonologists and arcane experimenters

harsh shoal
lean nimbus
obsidian gate
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any neutral or good wizards have been purged or exiled from thay, so you might find some former red wizards or renegades that arent evil

timid tendon
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in the 3.5e era (1340's DR) they were "just" power hungry slavers and morally-bankrupt arcanists seeking knowledge and power.
it wasn't until the Spellplague era (4e) that they became a necromantic tyranny

forest basin
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so evil and later evil+

full aurora
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Since archdevils are possible patrons for Warlocks, does that mean that Asmodeus can both empower Warlocks and Clerics (because he counts as a deity)?

obsidian gate
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yes

cloud marten
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there is potential in that multi-class

fervent grail
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Just how much of a threat is Titivilus to Dispater?

feral lintel
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Not in terms of strength, but most likely in terms of political power

silver tartan
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I have a question.

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What weak points does Tarrasque have?

calm crest
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Lore-wise, famously none.

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The only things stopping the Tarrasques from destroying everything are: the fact that there’s only one, powerful adventurers, and the fact that it hibernates for a while.

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Well, only one if the inhabitants of Falx aren’t true Tarrasques.

obsidian gate
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the tarrasque's abilities changed a lot between editions. it used take incredible efforts to stop it in past editions, now its mostly a sack of HP

calm crest
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You also used to be able to extract gems from its gizzard and process its corpse into a variety of potent magic items.

rough fractal
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Hi folks, running the Forgotten Realms. I have a player who wants to play a wood elf assassin, an evil poisoner. Obviously a character like that goes against the Seldraine and Corellon. I'm wondering if this PC could serve a god outside of the Seldraine, like Mask. Can Mask (or another non-elf deity) claim an elven spirit, or must the elf go through reincarnation and Corellon?

calm crest
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Elven spirits reincarnate barring unusual circumstances. That doesn’t mean that an elf can’t worship a non-elven deity.

merry rune
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i thought they specifically had to be allowed to reincarnate

obsidian gate
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could also serve someone from the dark seldraine

granite lynx
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I would like confirmation for the following lore: the spellplague was the dethroning of Mystra and the destruction of the weave. This physically deformed the world of Toril. When Mystra was reinstated and the weave restored, Toril kinda went back to normal, but many areas were shifted, removed, or replaced. Is this an adequate summary?

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If that lore is mostly correct, would it make sense that a settlement from the east found its way to the sword coast?

wispy fable
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What a coincidence that I have been throwing my face into Forgotten Realms lore recently 😎

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I'm looking forward to the Trivia

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Been listening to podcasts as I've been going to sleep ever since I asked that question about "Where should I start" a little while back

wind locust
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Is there any good lore in relation to The Moonshae isles?

fervent grail
jagged apex
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so depends what you are interested in

rough fractal
calm crest
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Deities have other interests than just claiming Petitioners. Mortal agents (including unwitting ones) are often more important.

wispy fable
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Any sort of vieo where a person talks to me and exaplins *** l o r e***, I gobble it up

rough fractal
fervent grail
wispy fable
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They add some neat cinematic touches and sound effects

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Looks like they're on apple pocasts too

fervent grail
grim siren
# granite lynx I would like confirmation for the following lore: the spellplague was the dethro...

Couple of bits.

It was not the dethroning of Mystra, the spellplague was the aftermath of Mystra's Murder. Mystra holds the Weave of Magic together, and with her death her murderers, Cyric and Shar could not keep it together.

Many parts of Toril were ravaged by the spellplague but it was a mixture of things. The Sea of Fallen Stars' water level dropped so sharply that it took a near year of constant rain to refill it.

Parts of the Twin World of Abeir also remerged with Toril after tens of thousands of years apart. From this we get several nations and the Dragonborn en masse.

Mystra Returned nearly a century later though very different. She was no longer the ascended Mortal but an amalgamation of that mortal, the weave itself, and the Original Mystra. (This is not the first time she has died.)

This returning to how things were, was called the Second Sundering, and had little to do specifically with Mystra's return itself. The sea level returned, continents restored, and things mostly went back to how they were.

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Most areas did not shift. You might be wondering, "Well the 3e map and the 5e Map are radically different." That was an out of world decision made by the designers to specifically shrink Faerun and force it to fit on a poster for the 3e FRCS.

The 5e Map nearly perfectly overlays the 1 and 2e maps.

calm crest
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By “Original Mystra,” do you mean Mystryl or just non-Midnight Mystra?

grim siren
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Mystra. Mystryl is a wholly seperate entity.

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Now for your game if you want these continent and world changing events to fling a town somewhere. It would not be out of the realm of possibility. But in world with the exceptions of things coming from Abeir, most of the realms stayed put, or the citizens picked up and moved.

cyan monolith
storm dagger
storm dagger
merry rune
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which to followers of the elven pantheon is horrible because they lost their rebirth and chance to return to their origins?

jagged apex
jagged apex
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most elves tend to follow their own pantheon like many races with racial pantheons on toril, meaning such elves would likely be outliers and exceptions to the norm, least to my knowledge

jagged apex
calm crest
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(Probably just a holdover of all high level AD&D mages needing to be human.)

timid tendon
jagged apex
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also regarding to the red wizards and their morality, is worth noting back in the day they use to mainly be split into two ideologies, one of which priorities research and the safety of the thayan plateau, which easily could have non evil members, but things changed a lot when Szass took power

jagged apex
# timid tendon Huh, If so, before then he was just a zulkir and not the leader of Thay iirc. T...

yeah as the zulkir of necromancy at the time, he basically used his massive undead army to overthrow the other zulkirs if memory serves, and once he became the defacto ruler of thay, that is when the country started gearing heavily towards becoming a nation of undead, now the main ones that are against him are part of a secretive rebel sect https://forgottenrealms.fandom.com/wiki/Thayan_Resurrection

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basically they are made of all the other schools, excluding necromancy obviously, aiming to overthrow Szass Tam and make thay great again as it were ie how it was before Szass Tam took over

granite lynx
timid tendon
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The weave was weak in Abeir, they had to rely on other forms of magic there

jagged apex
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yeah is why some that wound up on toril among the dragonborn were interested in wizardry, it is one of those things that they did not have on abeir

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cuz any influence the weave would have on abeir would be bare minimum cuz normally mystra and the weave are heavily intertwined and abeir's thing was to have a world the gods were not allowed that the primordials could rule, granted they most if not all wound up getting killed by the dragon on abeir, but regardless abeir was outside of the god's influence, mystra included

jagged apex
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and historically there was no weave on abeir, at all

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back when the two worlds were one they were known as Abeir-Toril, so naturally the name was split up when they split up the 1 world into 2 worlds

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also at least accoridng to what is cited on the wiki, what magics there were on abeir manifested or behaved differently like some of the kind of magics warlocks used in their pacts

jagged apex
rough fractal
# lean nimbus Are Red Wizards 100% evil?

Every Red Wizard of Thay is 100% complicit in the evils of Thay. Every Red Wizard not actively fighting the Thayan way of life accepts the luxuries and privileges they have due to Thay's evils

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Honestly, you can just comfortably think of the CSA

jagged apex
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honestly the fact they exist, at least to my knowledge nothing has established that Szass Tam has found all of them and destroyed them, disproves the preconsieved idea of all the red wizards of thay being evil, let alone complicit in Szass Tam's evil deeds as the one who is ruling thay and the majority of people in power among the red wizards

jagged apex
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besides last i checked the main factor of thayan society even before Szass Tam's take over was the ability to use magic or not

tepid hinge
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Does the Cult of the Dragon have anything to do with Dragonborns or only Dragons specifically?

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Also, can any sentient, willing creature become a lich or only humanoids and dragons?

calm crest
tepid hinge
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Got it, thanks

calm crest
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Apparently in 4e, Dragonborn members of the Cult of the Dragon were fairly common despite their hatred of dragons and indifference to religion. Given the Cult’s apocalyptic leanings, the crossing over of Dragonborn from Abeir during the Spellplague was seen as some sort of omen of the end times, but the Second Sundering happened a couple of decades ago and seems to be largely old news by 1501 DR.

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So it does seem like the Cult has more interest in Dragonborn than vice versa, but has probably lost some steam in that regard after nothing came of their appearance.

calm crest
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Looks like Giants can achieve the typical variety of lichdom, too.

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Generally most non-Humanoid species lack some combination of the sapience, ambition, magical potency, and limited lifespan needed to produce a lich.

tepid hinge
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Now that you mentioned Giants...

3rd question: Is it just me or is 5e Rune Magic different compared to previous editions?

I mean, Giantcraft runes are stuff like Wisdom, Ysgard, Weakness, Strength, Transformation, Speed, Love

Then, we have Bigby's and Storm King's Thunder, and we have runes like Fire, Cold, Storm, Death, War, etc

calm crest
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Yes. Aside from the typical Vancian magic system, the flavor and mechanics of various secondary magical and psionic methodologies have changed wildly between editions.

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It is presumably a simple retcon.

jagged apex
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that and each edition can in some ways be viewed as it's own continuity

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plus at least with the general idea behind them in 5e rune magic is more conceptual and broad so those older kinds likely can still exist, just much more hyper specific i'd imagine

sterile veldt
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Would it just be all Wild Magic if there was no Weave on a planet/plane?

calm crest
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No. Only Realmspace has the Weave. Every other world and plane gets by just fine without Mystra’s magical framework.

wispy aurora
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I am currently planning a short campaign and thought of using fifth edition, now I want to use Boraksaghegirak, but she's 3.5 (and maybe not even canon?) and I'm not sure if she's still active or if anything happened during the genie wars? The only date I can find is that she must (have) be(en) active during the 14th century? Would it still be viable to use her? An acquaintance of mine suggested using Tiamat, but I feel she doesn't fit the setting I had in mind- also I thought of setting it in 1490-1500, and I am pretty sure Tiamat is trapped in the nine hells during that time

tepid hinge
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Didn't want to talk on the original channel, so:

When Thultanthar fell. It wasn't thrown 550 miles from the Shoal of Thirst in Anauroch to Myth Drannor. Instead in 1487, The city was moved and positioned above Myth Drannor and then it fell

Source: #1437859968664735794 message

Did they have personal beef with Myth Drannor to let the city fall on it or was it already a ghost city by then?

merry rune
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The regular citizens were previously evacuated so it would mostly target the lich's plans.

tepid hinge
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Did this kill people on the flying city or was it also evacuated?

merry rune
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I don't know actually but I assume anyone who stayed was a Shar cultist.

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Many migrated to Myth Drannor before all this happened.

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I assume those who didn't were still with Shar.

untold gulch
# tepid hinge Didn't want to talk on the original channel, so: > When Thultanthar fell. It wa...

Ancient Netheril and Myth Drannor had an adversarial relationship that existed long before the current era dating back to the Crown and Scepter Wars and most significantly with the fact that elves stole one of the two complete sets of the Nether Scrolls and secretly took them to Windsong Tower to study them, as these were scrolls were responsible for the Netherese arcanists dramatically surpassing the Earlanni elves who taught them magic.

Each empire fell in the distant past, and in the 3E era around the 1370s Shade/Thultanthar returned to reform the Nerherese empire. Meanwhile an elven army aiding the fiend-besieged elven realms settled in the ruins of Myth Drannor to try to rebuild. At the end of the 3E era the Shades broke into Windsong Tower and stole back the stolen Nether Scrolls and attempted to use them to destroy Mystra's Weave while leaving the Shadow Weave in tact. Mystra died to Cyric a decade later and in 4E both realms were rivals and slowly rebuilding their civilizations with Myth Drannor being one of the many regional powers keeping Netheril in check.

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At the end of the Sundering, Telamont Tanthul moved Shade/Thultanthar over Myth Drannor in a plot to 'drain its mythal in hopes that doing so would allow them and Shar seize control of the re-emerging/remaining Weave'. There isn't much a lore basis for why that would work but changing editions and all. Larloch was trying to do the same, because he was retconned into being the former Chosen of Mystrl (ancient dead Mystra) and had been waiting all this time to take the Weave for himself. Elminster, Alustriel, and Laeral manipulated 'Weave Anchors' around Myth Drannor and used cooperative magic (Circle Magic?!) to foil them while also crashing Shade into Myth Drannor killing most of its inhabitants. Myth Drannors defenders and allies like Storm Silverhand tried to evacuate elves through a portal to Semberholme as it was descending

Personally I'm not a fan of the idea of crashing an entire city into another just to stop a magical ever from taking place. This was the second time Chosen like Laeral or Alustriel were involved in an attempt to crash the city and the idea of them committing mass murder feels out of character (both times). I like that the SCAG and the new books left things much more vague in terms of survivors for DMs and authors to change things to suit their campaign. Like how a RA Salvatore novel and AiF adventure feature Shade survivors, and the map of Myth Drannor shows scattered pieces of Shade sinking into shadow mists amid Myth Drannor's ruins. I'm inclined to have much of the Netherese city sink into the shadowfell and use it as an adventure location and explanation for how some of its inhabitants survive. Alustriel is not a mass murderer in my campaign.

copper rivet
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That is a whole mess of wierrd
though , i dont recall most high level mages of any alighnment being adverse to mass murder for whatver their cause is. The chosen of mystra (the god of magic) were trying to ensure that Mystra's Weave remained, and that Shar's Shadow Weave didnt get boosted. So that kind of make sense.

Should have just sacrificed a few high mages and a Sharn or two and silver-fire blasted Shade into ashes.

feral lintel
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is it ever said what ring of resistance the current xanathar wears?

calm crest
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Force, apparently.

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Seems like a pretty reasonable pick, given Beholders’ habit of disintegrating 9 of the former Xanathars to take their position.

versed hare
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My players were so suspicious of rings from xanathar lol

feral lintel
jagged apex
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to be fair, as memory serves running an organization is how some beholders keep their insanity and paranoia in check a bit

calm crest
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I suppose if you take over a conspiracy, that’s one less conspiracy that’s out to get you?

feral lintel
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on the topic of Xanny still, is it widely known that the leader is a beholder by this time, or is that just meta knowledge that we the players and Dms know

jagged apex
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far as i know it is meta and otherwise not common knowledge, would be a pretty lousy thieves guild or other secret criminal organization if it was common knowledge

cyan monolith
# calm crest No. Only Realmspace has the Weave. Every other world and plane gets by just fine...

I know this is a little pedantic, and what you said is 100% accurate, as far as it goes ...
Realmspace is the only place that calls it the "Weave". And they get by without "Mystra's" handiwork.
Other places (and even individual spellcasters) have other conceptions of the way magic works, or the way humans interact with it.
For example, GH has ley lines that either are where magic comes from, or are concentrated lines of the substance of magic, and they emit the energies classified by schools of magic. There's little difference between ley lines and woven lines of magic from Mystra, in all practicality, IMO.
But, they don't really name where ley lines come from or who made them.

jagged apex
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well some settings have an equivalent, but to my knowledge we don't know of any ones for other settings

cyan monolith
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" ... a kind of interface between the will of a spellcaster and the stuff of raw magic. The spellcasters of the Forgotten Realms call it the Weave and recognize its essence as the goddess Mystra, but casters have varied ways of naming and visualizing this interface. By any name, without the Weave, raw magic is locked away and inaccessible."

calm crest
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I mean, there are settings that are both D&D and use a different explanation for magic than the Weave, by any name. Mystara, for example, has its magic system due to radiation from a crashed spacecraft.

cyan monolith
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The fabric of magic exists in every realm of the Material Plane.
It's just that the mages of the FR have a fancy name for it, is all.

feral lintel
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i also expect eberron works a bit differently

jagged apex
calm crest
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Mystara isn’t on the (same) Prime Material Plane as any other D&D setting.

jagged apex
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cuz the weave and the faberic of magic are two different things

cyan monolith
jagged apex
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nobody is saying magic does not exist on places without the weave as we know it in the realms

feral lintel
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also, hey, youre the one being pendatic

cyan monolith
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I didn't say anyone said that, @jagged apex ... no one did.

jagged apex
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well the weave is not just a fancy name for magic, that i feel is a gross oversimplification to the point it turns into misinformation

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also the weave is not a source of magic, least not to my knowledge

cyan monolith
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I didn't say it was, @jagged apex. 🤷‍♀️

jagged apex
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well i am confused what you are trying to say then

cyan monolith
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Just ponting out that according to the source material, every setting has it, it's just not called the Weave, because that's something FR spellcasters named it.

jagged apex
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yeah, like i said some settings have an equivalent, but to my knowledge we don't know the names of any of those examples, at least far as i know such equivalents are not mentioned for other well established worlds like greyhawk, dragonlance, eberron, ect...

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far as i know dark sun had the gods themselves regulating magic, least before they ditched the world, could be wrong though

cyan monolith
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... because ... only ... FR ... named it. But it's not an "equivalent", it's literally the same thing.
I literally just quoted the source material that stated that fact. It's not a similar thing, or a corellary, or whatever.
Jus tbecause the emanations/structure/interface isn't given a name doesn't mean that it's not the same thing that has the same function.

jagged apex
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if that is the case, wouldn't mystra be in every setting? cuz from what i know especially stuff stated by ed greenwood, she and the weave are specific to the forgotten realms and don't naturally exist beyond it, i think it is just trying to say other worlds have something similar, but either way it is vague enough that unless we have actual names for these various "interfaces" as the quoted sentence puts it, seems pointless for us to be arguing about it if anything it just gives us a category for things like the weave to fall under, everything else seems very subjective

cyan monolith
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The whole point of that passage is that it is s'posed to obviate that argument that magic somehow has a difference in Faerun, and if someone says "a spellcaster does blah, blah, blah" there's not the same age-old argument that has been going around for decades, "Nuh-uh!! That's a weave caster, and that's only on Faerun, so that can't be anywhere else or work anywhere else!"
That's the whole point of it.
Is to get rid of that ridiculous debate about whether magic works the same everywhere.

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Those names are specific to the FR.
"Weave" and "Mystra" are 100% specific to the FR.

jagged apex
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it is not only on faerun, cuz faerun is only a single continent

cyan monolith
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Yeah, you're just being argumentative for the sake of trolling, now. 🙄

feral lintel
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...

jagged apex
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not really, at least i am not intentionally coming off that way

#

i am sorry if i am coming off that way though

cyan monolith
#

Right, because you genuinely thought I was spreading misinformation about the continent, rather than using "Faerun" as short for referring to the setting as a whole.

jagged apex
#

i don't know of anyone that normally does that, i often only see people using it to refer to the setting do to misconceptions some newer people tend to have

merry rune
#

Hey Kit

jagged apex
#

i literally had no idea you were just using it as short hand until you told me that was what you were doing

merry rune
#

Ive found scarlet to be extremely literal without any malice

#

I think thats just how they do things

feral lintel
#

thats literally how scarlet just is yeah.

jagged apex
#

yeah, i have a hard time decerning tone without any sort of emote or what have you to help convey things like that in text

glossy summit
#

is there lore on humans?

merry rune
#

It caught me offguard too but what can you do

feral lintel
glossy summit
jagged apex
#

though not all of them live in faerun, the world of toril, and the realms as a whole is a vast place

rose bough
#

is there anything you're looking for specifically? Humans are everywhere and explaining them would end up being an explanation of 90% of faerun's lore. Are you looking for origins, notable features etc.?

jagged apex
#

there are about 7 main ethnicities that are specific to the lands that make up the continent of faerun

glossy summit
#

is tal dorei a canon dnd setting?

jagged apex
#

yeah unlike the more fantastical races i guess you can call them, humans don't have the same degree of detail that is noted

rose bough
#

though I think it goes by Exandria now more often to refer to the whole world rather than the continent

jagged apex
# glossy summit is tal dorei a canon dnd setting?

it's it's own setting, nothing to do with the forgotten realms, it is partnered content but far as i know is mostly ment to be part of the dnd multiverse, but i am not entirely sure as some things like vecna in that setting throw me off in trying to consolidate things

#

if you want human lore for that setting you want either the setting specific book "tal dorei reborn" or at least you get some partial for the wildemount book, which is set on the same world but on a different part of it

#

else best i can think to do is check out the critical role wiki as they created the setting and wizards helped them publish it

feral lintel
#

cr is in a weird state in the continuinity

jagged apex
#

i try not to think about it too much specifically cuz it's vecna and how to consolidate that with the wider multiverse, especially when attempts to get an answer from mathew mercer or them to clarify things just makes my lore addicted mind hurt

#

cuz at least as i understand it everything else can fit in rather neatly into the lore for the wider multiverse, but it have it's own vecna and not being, least to my knowledge a self contained cosmology, it makes my brain hurt if i try to consolidate it

jagged apex
rose bough
#

I think Vecna the famous oerthian lich turned god and Vecna the critical role baddie turned god are completely seperate but incredibly similar characters

feral lintel
#

ive always thought it was him splitting himself and adapting to exandria

jagged apex
rose bough
#

I think its because Matt's Vecna was originally just his version of the Canon Vecna (or inspired by Oerth, as were the Exandrian gods), but because the campaign exploded in popularity and then Exandria became its own official thing, Matt's Vecna is just an original Exandrian character that just so happens to be based off the Oerthian Vecna.

god its so confusing to talk about this lmao

jagged apex
# feral lintel ive always thought it was him splitting himself and adapting to exandria

the weird part is far as i know the one on exandria was born mortal and is completely independent of the one from oerth, part of why trying to rationalize it frustrates me, cuz the other deities in the setting that exist across the multiverse, don't have this clear and present issue, and vecna as a god i can see no reason he'd intentionally become mortal only to have to basically go through his entire journey to godhood all over again, that seems entirely out of line with his most consistent character traits prior, which unless it is given as an official answer i have a hard time accepting cuz it does doesn't seem to make sense

jagged apex
feral lintel
#

does matt stil even answer questions about exandria

calm crest
# jagged apex far as i know dark sun had the gods themselves regulating magic, least before th...

Prior to the DMG’24 having an off handed mention of gods, Athas was heavily implied to never have had gods. Arcane magic wasn’t invented until relatively recently during the Green Age of Athas, with the express purpose of creating the Champions of Rajaat. There may be further retcons, but with the scant information we currently have, it’s hard to say what influence the gods have had—if any—on Athas, although I doubt they had anything to do with magic, as it was created by Rajaat.

#

Technically Blue Age halflings had the life-shapers that created all modern non-thri-kreen species, although this nature-mastery is probably psionic rather than magical.

unkempt merlin
#

Easiest way to think about the Exandrian Vecna is the same way as other gods - or dragons.

Echoes essentially. The same "essence" just in a different form

#

It doesn't really work that weird compared to anything else

#

(Exandria as a whole though however is definitely canon to the dnd multiverse - even if the specifics of all critical role properties aren't necessarily. The setting has been referenced in many books at this point in 5e. Iirc more than even some older settings have been)

stable fox
#

im curious, have there ever been planes that have been lost? as in, become inaccessible or vanished, destroyed, or the sort. further yet, if there have been lost planes, have any returned to the multiverse? forgotten realms? im uncertain what the entire setting is called, truth be told

calm crest
#

The core D&D multiverse doesn’t have a specific name as a whole. Regions of it have names (the Outer Planes or Great Wheel, the Inner Planes, the Transitory Planes, the Prime Material Plane, and the Far Realm beyond the multiverse).

#

The Forgotten Realms is the out-of-universe name for the Faerûn region of Toril, a planet in Realmspace on the Prime.

stable fox
#

ah, thank you. i have seen forgotten realms thrown about, but never associated anything with it for lack of certainty

calm crest
#

As for lost planes, there are plenty that existed previously but don’t seem to exist anymore.

#

The Demiplane of Electromagnetism, for example.

stable fox
#

i see. do they seem to not exist now because official material hasn't referred to them since, or is there a concrete reason within the lore for it?

stable fox
calm crest
#

In-universe, even back in 2e, the DPoEM was bleeding away into the Quasielemental Plane of Lightning. The QEPoL has since been absorbed into the Elemental Chaos.

stable fox
#

oh so there is a lore reason. this is most intriguing

calm crest
#

Similarly, the Shadowfell is a combination of several ex-demiplanes: the Demiplane of Shadow, Moil, and the Domains of Dread.

calm crest
stable fox
#

i see i see. i take it thats a case of out-of-universe decisions to maintain simplicity. if i had to take a gander, id guess the in-lore explanation is maybe something along the lines of planes failing and merging for some reason

barren portal
#

Mira is here ts gonna be good

stable fox
#

have i done something wrong?

barren portal
#

no, youre just an actually helpful person on the internet

calm crest
barren portal
#

which is rare these days

calm crest
#

The Shadowfell, Feywild, and Elemental Chaos are the big ones that stuck.

barren portal
#

anyway, back to lore

stable fox
stable fox
#

oh wow. i must have been drunk. what i remember is certainly not in the PhB

#

drunk, while i dont drink alcohol. very strange. im just saying im super lost on my memory

#

oh, ohohoo. i remember now. i was initially quite lost on the topic of the planes because the PhB provides a surface-level glimpse, but apparently the DMG gives a much more in-depth resource. ill have to comb that one over

calm crest
#

The main format of the multiverse is the Prime Material Plane at the center, which contains all mortal worlds. The Prime intersects with the Astral Plane via wildspace and overlaps with the Border Ethereal Plane. The Shadowfell and the Feywild are reflections of the Prime, connected by the Ethereal Plane. The Deep Ethereal contains nearly all demiplanes and connects the Border with the Prime to the Border Ethereal of the Inner Planes. The Inner Planes are the four Elemental Planes (air, fire, earth, water) surrounded by the Elemental Chaos (where distinctions between elements break down), as well as the Positive and Negative Energy Planes. Conversely, the Astral Plane connects to the Outer Planes, called the Great Wheel in the modern configuration. The Outer Planes include the Outlands (true neutral) with Sigil at its center, surrounded by Mount Celestia (LG), Bytopia (LG/NG), Elysium (NG), the Beastlands (CG/NG), Arborea (CG), Ysgard (CG/CN), Limbo (CN), Pandaemonium (CE/CN), the Abyss (CE), Carceri (CE/NE), Hades (NE), Gehenna (LE/NE), Baator (LE), Archeron (LE/LN), Mechanus (LN), and Arcadia (LG/LN). Beyond the multiverse rests the Far Realm.

stable fox
#

thank you, truly. ill head to bed, im afraid. i am quite tired. this has been most insightful

feral lintel
#

Probably been asked before, but are dragons verbal/able to talk immediately?

calm crest
#

White dragon wyrmlings, which have barely above animal intelligence, are able to speak Draconic by age 5 at the latest.

feral lintel
#

how about spirit dragons?

calm crest
#

All wyrmlings, which are the category from hatching to 5 years old, are listed as speaking Draconic.

#

Even in the case of dragon species that don’t raise their young.

karmic belfry
#

Hi there!

#

So I've been interested about reading a bit about the lore of the Forgotten Realms, and I've found many of the old official sources like the Grand History of the Realms. But I also understand that WoTC position regarding cannon is that if it is not published after 2014, then is not cannon

#

So is there any official book after 2014 that narrates events like the dawn war, the creation myth, the days of thunder and such that rewrites what's on previous publications?

#

Or is it just that, those old books are cannon until WoTC decides to publish a retcon?

#

I saw that there was a new book I've never seen before called D&D Lore and Legends, but it seems more like an artbook with info dump, so I don't know if there is a rewrite on the lore from this

grim siren
# karmic belfry Or is it just that, those old books are cannon until WoTC decides to publish a r...

So that now deleted article, mentioned that it is what they consider canon. While WotC is the IP holder the reality of such a move is to not bog down their writing team with 40+ years of material. As they write new stuff.

This isn't like when star wars announced the old EU was becoming "Legends". Because they quickly went about making a metric crap load of content to adapt to the new canon.

WotC doesn't work like that. For stuff like timelines it is a general safe assumption that if it hasn't been changed you can run with it. Especially for the Realms.

#

You will find other creation myths like the elegy of the First World in fizbans but these are creation myths. There is no proof these things are actually factual.

brazen atlas
craggy crown
#

If I recall correctly, it says somewhere in a core rulebook (DMG?) that when a character dies and don't follow a god, they go to the outer plane of their alignment. What if they are true neutral?

jagged apex
#

as it is the outer plane of true neutral

arctic rampart
#

Wotc recently released on the Forgotten Realms called Forgotten Realms: Heroes of Faerun. I dont how how far into the history of the Realms it goes into but its the most recent official source that exists.

tepid hinge
#

Anyways, apparently Calimshan is different in the new FR book compared to what it used to be

That being said, what was changed from old Calimshan?

#

(IDK anything about D&D lore)

jagged apex
#

well the forgotten realms wiki should have most info about it from previous lore entries in one place you can read so i'd suggest looking there

arctic rampart
jagged apex
#

also as i recall they constantly experienced disasters so they had to often rebuild most of their nation, do to most of it getting destroyed or damaged as most things tend to get when hit by natural disasters

jagged apex
arctic rampart
#

I know, I'm just giving my limited opinion on the matter of the new book. I would have liked it better if they presented the Orc's nomadic and more peaceful nature as something recent to the Orcs as a race.

jagged apex
#

well it is not universal

#

honestly given the bias and such towards certain races on toril, the majority of orcs on toril are likely less peaceful, remember the stuff in the dmg is setting agnostic, ie not tied to the setting specific lore of any 1 setting, where as these books are specifically to the forgotten realms and more specifically faerun

#

just cuz the orcs across the multiverse are rather peaceful, does not mean every orc is of a peaceful nature especially in any given setting

#

like anyone else in the lore, they will be shaped by their history and experiences as a people on what ever world in what ever setting they are in, and in the realms it was not exactly pleasant

arctic rampart
#

I know but the book presents it as if the orcs have always been nomadic rather than would be conquerors. This isnt the DMG though, this is setting specific.

jagged apex
#

yeah the majority of orcs to my knowledge are nomadic, is part of why the many arrows kingdom was so significant until it fell

#

though the term nomadic might not be the most ideal term for their situation

unkempt merlin
#

Despite the framing being different orcs as nomads is pretty consistent with the FRs history

jagged apex
#

and while i could be wrong, far as i am aware this is not entirely new, nor necessarily contradictory

unkempt merlin
#

Its not like nomads cant also be would be conquerers

jagged apex
#

yeah, exactly

arctic rampart
#

The huge problem is it glosses over the Orcs violent nature and/or presents it as an anomaly

jagged apex
#

you can conqure something but nothing about the act of conquest requires you to stay there

#

the violence is not really nature and more so born out of their environment and interaction with others, while more brutal by nature, does not mean they are any more violent, so i think you may just be misunderstanding something or misremembering, though i could be wrong

unkempt merlin
#

As for the peaceful side of things - it doesnt really do that. Its more akin to the new drow lore of basically saying "not all groups of orcs are violent"

#

Which is also admittedly, in line with old FR lore, albeit that only previously focused on one group

arctic rampart
#

It literally acts as if the orcs interact peacefully with most other races

jagged apex
#

orcs being inherently violent or evil are more so in universe stereotypes that other people act on more often than not historically

jagged apex
#

a lot of people for better or worse these days tend to oversimplify some things when trying to recall and summarize them, even if unintentionally

unkempt merlin
balmy garden
#

BG3 happens after Descent to Avernus right?

#

When does Astarion book of hunger happen? Is it before bg3?

#

Tryna make sense of timelinnes

unkempt merlin
#

Best I can gather is that BoH isn't exactly "in" timeline for the most part

obsidian knoll
#

My dude, because apparently there's versions of that which bots take offense to, do you know the history of the realms?

jagged apex
#

it's a supplement themed around vampires and similar beings, or at least things relating in some way to astarion's storylines and or character, the only thing that potentially would have a place in the timeline if i had to guess are the two included it mentions as being included

obsidian knoll
#

The orcs invading toril and the drow (insert pg term for erasing a subspecies of humanoids here)

jagged apex
# balmy garden Tryna make sense of timelinnes

to my knowledge only adventures and sourcebooks tend to have placements in a sort of timeline, things like BoH is a supplement just ment to be in vaguely modern times in terms of the relevant lore of dnd, only thing likely to have a set date to work with would be in the adventures included in it, but that is not a guarentee as some adventures that get dedicated books are vauge and ambiguous at the exact time they are set in sometimes

#

so at best it would just be in roughly the same era for lack of a better term of those events i'd imagine, hard to say as i don't own the product myself so i am largely going off what is described about it in the marketplace

unkempt merlin
#

Drow still fully exist in the FR

#

with their lore

obsidian knoll
unkempt merlin
#

the discussion is specifically about the new FR books

jagged apex
#

most drow just happen to live below the surface, in the underdark, far as i know those that live outside of the underdark are exceptions to the norm, but far as i know at no point where they ever wiped out or even pushed to near extinction

obsidian knoll
#

Did they not retcon the moon elf purge?

unkempt merlin
#

not that I'm aware

#

Moon elves in the FR also aren't drow, they are high elves

obsidian knoll
#

That time where the Illithiiri decided to burn the moon elves in their city, and that caused the drow to be cast down

jagged apex
#

the drow before their current state were what were known as dark elves

obsidian knoll
#

The crown wars

jagged apex
#

and the term drow is rooted last i checked in the elven word for traitor which became shortened to drow

obsidian knoll
#

Yes, as a result of their murder of the moon elf subspecies

unkempt merlin
#

why the drow became drow in the FR has not changed as far as I'm aware

#

and moon elves weren't eliminated in the realms before that either

#

they have been around

obsidian knoll
#

In very small numbers

unkempt merlin
#

sure?

jagged apex
#

and it was largely an act done by the other elves as i recall using their god's magic, and forced them underground, it is not like it annihilated them or anything like that

obsidian knoll
#

Did the orcs still come to toril via invasion?

unkempt merlin
#

Wasn't that goblinoids?

jagged apex
#

it was some orcs

#

there are different kinds of orcs on toril with different origins, one came via a gate and invaded

unkempt merlin
#

I know goblinoids explicitly came from "another (undefined originally) plane"

obsidian knoll
jagged apex
obsidian knoll
#

The Dale Reckoning was a result of an interplanar orc invasion

#

It's the marker for the most common calendar in the forgotten realms

jagged apex
unkempt merlin
#

ah yes right

jagged apex
#

the world is not named just described at least on the wiki as "a savage one dominated by fanatically religious orcish empires."

unkempt merlin
#

as far as I recall from the new book, the exact origins of orcs aren't covered in any broad detail

#

But that doesn't mean the lore has been retconned

jagged apex
#

and thus in that regard since no new information has contradicted it, it is safer to presume it is till in tact rather than retconned

#

older lore is valid usually as long as it does not directly contradict newer lore, so them not mentioning the orc gate wars or the other origins are more or less them not reiterating old lore that would largely be already established and just take up what ever limited page count they have to work with, meaning less new or actual relevant content could be included

merry rune
#

i swear i read on here the other day that all lore from old editions has been officially decanonised

unkempt merlin
obsidian knoll
merry rune
#

they didnt specify "old" though

unkempt merlin
#

Thats also not what legacy means

obsidian knoll
#

But only certain books are considered legacy

jagged apex
#

if they had to reiterate every single thing from old sources that is still canon to the published continuity, a majority of the books would just be reiterating older content

merry rune
#

which is why i think if they were to do this, it would be a bad idea

jagged apex
#

yeah, they are basically trusting we know how to use critical thinking if we are examining the published lore

unkempt merlin
# unkempt merlin not quite accurate

In effect, the whole "what wotc considers canon" is just their way of saying "we aren't going to make ourselves fully beholden to things from previous editions" to give themselves room

Most of the time whatever they do is still fully built off lore that came before, even if that lore isn't directly named or restated.

obsidian knoll
#

Legacy Content
Dungeons & Dragons is a game that is constantly evolving. This means that we may revisit older content in order to improve or otherwise adjust them. Going forward, any content that does not reflect the latest rules and lore will be referred to as Legacy Content.

unkempt merlin
#

Yea, if that lore has actually been changed or updated since

jagged apex
#

as they said in their canon article way back, they know the history of dnd, and presumably far as i know they still work with ed greenwood when making realms content, so it is not like they are just throwing out and forgetting everything old, each edition is as much a continuation as it is it's own continuity, at least that is the way i like to think of it

obsidian knoll
#

But only certain books got legacy tagged

unkempt merlin
#

in regards to the lore of those books - that lore is FR specific. And its not been contradicted by anything else for the FR - thus its still the most recent lore for the setting

jagged apex
#

something simply not being addressed or referenced does not magically wipe that event from continuity

obsidian knoll
#

They still have Thay after all, and that's a bit more of an issue than the drow

jagged apex
#

like i said earlier, if they had to reiterate every single bit of old lore that is still valid, we'd barely be getting anything new in newer books

obsidian knoll
#

Thay, the place that caused a slave trade route to appear on the economy map of the forgotten realms in a 3.x setting book

jagged apex
obsidian knoll
#

That's still in the setting

unkempt merlin
#

Yes slavery is still mentioned in the FR - including the most recent books. I'm not sure the point you are trying to make

obsidian knoll
#

I thought they had done away with it altogether

unkempt merlin
#

You seem to have been severely misinformed then

obsidian knoll
#

It also makes me wonder if the dark sun setting is still a possibility, or at least if we can get the Templar class from that setting

jagged apex
#

dark sun is literally mentioned in the new core books

#

it very much is still a thing, weather or not we will get an official sourcebook for 5e's continuity, only time will tell

#

so until 5e is said and done, even the new 2024 version, it very much is still a possibility so long as the world keeps going on irl

arctic rampart
jagged apex
#

except that is not nessissarily the case, dandere

#

the main patron deity of the species on toril kind of encourages the dark past, not every orc is willing to turn the other cheek

unkempt merlin
obsidian knoll
jagged apex
#

also being a proud warrior does not exclude you from wickedness, malice, or anything else one might call evil

#

retcons are not inherently negative nor lazy

#

it is the introduction of new information that potentially changes how previous events our viewed, like with anything it can be exicuted well or poorly

#

retcons being negative inherently is largely a public misconception to my understanding

obsidian knoll
#

A retcon is a change to established events designed to patch holes or remove inconvenient problems

jagged apex
#

wrong

#

for word the definition is "revise (an aspect of a fictional work) retrospectively, typically by introducing a piece of new information that imposes a different interpretation on previously described events:" end quote

obsidian knoll
jagged apex
#

what you described is at best the description of a poorly exicuted retcon

obsidian knoll
#

"(in a film, television series, or other fictional work) a piece of new information that imposes a different interpretation on previously described events, typically used to facilitate a dramatic plot shift or account for an inconsistency."

jagged apex
#

that is the other first definition, specifically as a noun

obsidian knoll
#

It's a plot patch

jagged apex
#

the fact that there is more than one definition makes it clear that is not as clear cut as you may have been describing

obsidian knoll
#

The noun definition merely adds context

jagged apex
#

i am simply saying it is not inherently something negative or lazy, it can be such, but it is not so just by virtue of being a retcon

#

believe what you want, i made myself as clear as i can think to, if you disagree, still, then let's just agree to disagree and move on, shall we?

obsidian knoll
#

I'm saying if it becomes frequent or acts as a plot crutch then it's both

arctic rampart
# jagged apex the main patron deity of the species on toril kind of encourages the dark past, ...

But if you go to the section when describing the orcs under character options it literally says the Orcs mostly coexist peacefully with other races have occasionally been recruited into armies for conquerors. It mentions Gruumsh having beef with Corellon and having territory disputes with Dwarves but that's it. The closest you actually get to their dark past is a Tyrant taking over the kingdom Many-Arrows but that he was taken care of because the orcs wanted to be peaceful.

jagged apex
#

i said i don't have the new books myself, so i literally can't do what you are saying to do

#

besides it sounds like it is largely just leaving out the bloody details

#

plus a lot of the details of those myths and histories tend to be influenced by those telling the story and thus have bits that are not entirely reliable and not every race is as long lived as the elves, dwarves, ect...

thick sentinel
#

Dökkálfars are Dökkálfar and Uruks are Uruk (to me)
Avoids all confusion and avoids all stereotype and bias driven issues
Promotes inclusion and does not deadname underrepresented persons

cloud marten
#

maybe they existence makes Drizzt less special or maybe it doesn't but I do love idea that not all drow are evil

grim siren
#

Drow haven't been all evil for decades.

#

The Aeven and Lorendrow did not invent the concept of good aligned Drow outside of Drizzt.

#

Good aligned Drow communities have existed for a long time in Waterdeep, Silverymoon, Cormanthor, the Border Kingdoms and elsewhere.

#

Open Lord of Waterdeep Laeral Silverhand has a Drow sister who is good aligned.

jagged apex
cloud marten
#

I can image that it must be difficult for drow that don't worship Lloth live Underdark

#

that said it does seem weird to me that species that lived above ground can't live there normally

jagged apex
#

which involved a special rune

jagged apex
# cloud marten I can image that it must be difficult for drow that don't worship Lloth live Und...

well more recent years have revealed that lolth's hold may not be as firm as she wants people to believe, which tracks with how in the past some drow cities are instead of lolth modeled around the faith of one of the other members of the dark seldarine pantheon, but as i recall lolth was technically beleived to be the majoirty of such cities, then again much drow lore comes via driz'zt meta and otherwise who was specifically from one of the cities most known for being under lolth's influence

cloud marten
#

I guess there is certain bias with that as cities under her are best known in lore

#

even drow entry in MM14 was focused on her

jagged apex
#

yeah and lolth is a bit of a control freak i guess you could say, despite her basically leading her drow to a society that is a sort of orginized chaos

cloud marten
#

that's how she seems to keep power

#

by making drow under her plot against each other

jagged apex
#

so clealy she'd lead such cities to spin history and other info in her favor where ever possible, and some likely did out of an attempt to avoid her sometimes random ire

jagged apex
cloud marten
#

her web really goes deep does it

jagged apex
#

fitting that she userped the demon lord of spiders and has been associated with them ever since XD

#

plus you know, demon web pits, works with her themes so well on multiple levels

lost plinth
#

Random…
How big are adult/ancient dragons?
More specifically their heads?
I’m thinking about making an armor from it or incorporating it into my armor….im a Goliath so not really big but bigger than most playable races

karmic belfry
#

Hello there, what are the current most notable halfling towns?

languid ore
#

Hi, I'm new to DND. What's the lore of it?

modest badger
# languid ore Hi, I'm new to DND. What's the lore of it?

That's gonna be a tricky one to answer, as there is a lot! There are also multiple 'settings' which are different worlds a DM might use (or make their own), such as: Greyhawk, Forgotten Realms (Faerun), Dragonlance (Krynn), Eberron, Darksun (Athas), Mystara (Hollowworld), and more. The first four mentioned are older settings that have been reused in 5e, the latter two haven't seen a full revival yet, and newer ones have been introdruced (Theros, Exandria, Ravinica...)

#

And the lore may change on the setting you're playing in (and even edition, although most will assume 5e is being talked about).

languid ore
modest badger
#

You'll find basic, typically setting neutral lore in the Playerhandbook and Monster Manual. If you have any questions on lore beyond that, it's best to be more specifc- For which setting and about what.

modest badger
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Forgotten Realms (Sometimes referred to FR or Faerun), is usually the most commonly used setting, with quite a few prewritten adventures set there.

jagged apex
# lost plinth Random… How big are adult/ancient dragons? More specifically their heads? I’m ...

adults and ancients vary a lot more in size, 3.5e had size ranges for each size category and largely a lot of that can be applied to 5e, it just uses less categories, it also can vary slightly from species of dragon to species of dragon, but historically creatures in the huge category, such as adult dragons, have a height or length ranging from 16ft-32ft and gargantuan which ancients are part of being anything in 5e that has a height or length of 32ft or greater, to my knowledge specific measurements are not given for individual parts of a dragon's anatomy

#

for the major dragons of chromatic and metallic variety some of their artwork in the 2024 books offers some good scale as for example the art for the adult brass dragon has some mummies in the pic that help provide a sense of scale

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and in that same regard examples like the ancient blue dragon provide a good sense of scale with the knights in the artwork with said dragon

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so those artworks should at the very least give you a good general idea of the average sense of scale of such dragons in relation to most player races

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i'd say the size of an ancient dragon's head on average at least in 5e seems to be comparable to a small car, again some specimens can be larger than others especially since in 5e gargantuan is the largest size category and thus would have no upper limit in terms of scale

thick sentinel
#

I refer to Forgotten Realms as Toril, is that incorrect?

harsh shoal
jagged apex
#

so it is not wrong, at least technically

cloud marten
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think Toril like Tolkien's world Arda. there is wider world but important things happen on single continent if that makes sense

thick sentinel
#

which continent is that?

cloud marten
#

Faerun

jagged apex
#

and in more recent years more often in the section known as the sword coast is where a majority of focus has been for much of 5e, not all, but likely a majority if i am not mistaken

polar snow
#

Hey folks, I got the new core books last week, and I noticed that half-humans are kind of missing. Did anyone address this thing?

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Like, I would understand if they said "just roll a human or an elf/orc and call it a half-breed", but it looks like they straight deleted them for existence

thick sentinel
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Address it? What would you like addressed? How about we don't call it that?

unkempt merlin
#

They still exist in lore, they just are not mechanically distinct

calm crest
#

(Or you just use the 2014 stats as they’ve not been reprinted.)

calm crest
grim siren
#

It goes

Toril <- Planet
Bharyar <- Supercontinent
Faerûn <- Continent on Bharyar
Kara-Tur <- Continent on Bharyar
Zakhara <- Continent on Bharyar

Maztica <- Continent
Anchorome <- Continent
Katashaka <- Continent

Osse <- Continent
Arandron <- Continent

calm crest
#

Is Chult a continent, or just a large island on the same continental plate as Bharyar?

grim siren
#

Chult is part of Faerûn

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It is officially called the Chultan peninsula.

thick sentinel
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I heard there are two AncientEgyptian-like lands

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why would there be two?

grim siren
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The nations of Mulhorand and Unther are in eastern Faerûn. They sit at opposite sides of the Alamber Sea.