D&D 5E What is canon about older-edition settings in 5E?

[Parmandur]

Not according to the Exandria book itself, though (unless I missed a reference). So by the current Wizards canon policy, we don't officially know when Vecna ascended (except that it was more recently than the Raven Queen) or how Arkhan got that hand. This policy makes for some interesting effects...

Side thought: I wonder if this is part of why the revised Tal'dorei book is being independently produced, instead of released through Wizards like Exandria was. (Though it being a guaranteed best-seller for CR's homegrown game company would have been more than enough reason.)

According to today's Studio blog by Perkims, only the PHB, MM, and DMG are considered canon by WotC right now. Everything else is optional.

 

[Hexmage-EN]

This seems to be a bit ridiculous to me. Exandria is its own setting, not Nentir Vale or Greyhawk. Making connections to the wider multiverse of DnD like this would be like saying that Takhissis and Tiamat are the same exact being and their stories are identical.

Now, I do admit that in the Wildemount book they use the same names for the gods as well as titles, but in the Tal'dorie book they only used their titles and I think it is far more appropriate to consider these new dieties rather than the old ones, even if we can draw comparisons between them.

(And, just because I think most of these titles are super cool names and they don't all match the Dawn War Pantheon, here is the list.)

Spoiler: Gods of Exandria

The Archeart -> Corellon Larethian
The Allhammer -> Moradin
The Changebringer -> Avandra
The Dawnfather -> Pelor
The Everlight -> Sarenrae (Not Dawn War, Pathfinder, referred to as Raei in the Wildemount book)
The Knowing Mistress -> Ioun
The Lawbearer -> Erathis
The Matron of Ravens (blech, only bad name)-> The Raven Queen
The Moonweaver -> Sehanine Moonbow
The Platinum Dragon -> Bahamut
The Stormlord -> Kord
The Wildmother -> Melora
The Chained Oblivion -> Tharizdun
The Cloaked Serpent -> Zehir
The Crawling King -> Torog
The Lord of the Hells (eh, also not a great name) -> Asmodeus
The Ruiner -> Gruumsh
The Spider Queen -> Lolth
The Strife Emperor -> Bane
The Scaled Tyrant -> Tiamat
The Whispered One -> Vecna

I know it is only a single divergence, but it is a pretty big and thorny one. There are also 10 lesser powers that I don't think correspond to anything in another setting.


Edit: And if this was just a way to say "the dawn war pantheon exists in 5e!... it is in the DMG. You don't need Wildemount to provide those names. They also are in the PHB, for those from FR or Greyhawk

IIRC, the campaign that would become Critical Role started as a 4E one-shot and a lot of the lore synches up well, so the Critical Role gods are at least takes on the Dawn War gods (plus Sarenrae). The Raven Queen's background of being a mage who killed a god of the dead and took his place is nearly identical to the background of the 4E Raven Queen save for the explicit reference to that slain god being Nerull.

For my own Exandria campaign I'm drawing on the lore about the gods from 4E to use as the description for how things were pre-Calamity, drawing on 4E's Underdark book in particular to elaborate on how banishing Torog from the Underdark to the Far Realm during the Calamity might have been a bad idea (because both Dawn War and Critical Role Lolth definitely play second-fiddle to Torog as far as being the god of the Underdark).

The fact that Critical Role's lore is so friendly to 4E lore is a big reason why I'm using Exandria for my campaign. I can easily draw on 4E for any details that haven't been established in Critical Role yet to fill-in gaps.

 

[Chaosmancer]

IIRC, the campaign that would become Critical Role started as a 4E one-shot and a lot of the lore synches up well, so the Critical Role gods are at least takes on the Dawn War gods (plus Sarenrae). The Raven Queen's background of being a mage who killed a god of the dead and took his place is nearly identical to the background of the 4E Raven Queen save for the explicit reference to that slain god being Nerull.

A 4e one-shot that became a Pathfinder Game (hence Sarenrae) that shifted into a 5e game.

All in a homebrew world.

For my own Exandria campaign I'm drawing on the lore about the gods from 4E to use as the description for how things were pre-Calamity, drawing on 4E's Underdark book in particular to elaborate on how banishing Torog from the Underdark to the Far Realm during the Calamity might have been a bad idea (because both Dawn War and Critical Role Lolth definitely play second-fiddle to Torog as far as being the god of the Underdark).

The fact that Critical Role's lore is so friendly to 4E lore is a big reason why I'm using Exandria for my campaign. I can easily draw on 4E for any details that haven't been established in Critical Role yet to fill-in gaps.

Sure, that's fine.

What I was objecting to was using Critical Role and Exandrian lore to say that we have Greyhawk and Nentir Vale lore. That seems highly dismissive to reduce a setting to being a reference to two other settings. Exandria doesn't tell us a thing about Greyhawk or Nentir Vale. It tells us about Exandria

 

[JEB]

From the Chris Perkins Canon statement

"Fifth edition’s canon includes every bit of lore that appears in the most up-to-date printings of the fifth edition Player’s Handbook, Monster Manual, and Dungeon Master’s Guide. Beyond these core rulebooks, we don’t have a public-facing account of what is canonical in fifth edition because we don’t want to overload our fellow creators and business partners."

Ha! Of course they would release this just when I was basically finished...

Oh well. So much for trying to use this to predict what their rebooted versions of classic settings might look like. Dragonlance may as well involve an all-flumph cast, far as we know.

(Sidenote: "we don’t have a public-facing account of what is canonical in fifth edition". So they do have an internal determination of what's canon...)

EDIT: Also note "every bit of lore that appears in the most up-to-date printings". Meaning that new printings may change or remove anything they wish to reflect their current preference. And they've already used errata to make changes to lore in other books...

 

[Parmandur]

Sidenote: "we don’t have a public-facing account of what is canonical in fifth edition". So they do have an internal determination of what's canon

Right, they like referencing old lore, but they aren't insisting that Baldur's Gate 3 and the movie adhere to anything beyond the Core 3 dor lore.