D&D 5E Legends & Lore 3/17 /14

[ForeverSlayer]

What's this nonsense about wanting lore somehow shows a lack of intelligence? That's like giving me grief and telling me I lack intelligence just because I want to read a novel. Are you going to tell me that I should just create my own story? At the end of the day, WoTc provides a service that I pay money for. If I want to create my own lore then I can, but sometimes I don't want to. D&D has come with it's own baked in lore for the past 40 years and that's one of the reasons why I like it. If I want generic fantasy then I will purchase GURPS. I like to delve into lore that someone else comes up with as long as it carries the original lore along.

 

[I'm A Banana]

But it goes against this default thinking theory. By default, this is how this monster acts in this other setting, so what about in mine?

This is how this monster acts in this other setting -- it can also act that way in yours, if you assent to it. Zombies are shuffling undead that eat brains in '80's slasher flicks...they can also be that way in your world. In Ravenloft, Strahd looms over a sleepy village. In your world too, if you want it. In Harry Potter, goblins run banks, maybe it happens in your games, too. Greek myth has centaurs, and so can your game! FR Drow worship the Spider Queen Lolth, who is a fallen elven goddess. So can "Joe's Game" Drow! Tolkein wrote about fat homebody halflings, guess what your D&D game can have, too?

This describes pretty much exactly what happens when a DM is putting together a world or adventure anyway. In fact, aside from the goblins, all of the above probably represents how zombies, vampires, centaurs, drow, and halflings are going to be presented in 5e anyway. All we're doing is expanding the pool of interesting stories to other D&D things, and making them explicitly things you can choose to do -- to make it clear that these zombies are '80's slasher flick zombies, and they are not going to satisfy your need for authentic afro-carribean zombies, but they will give your D&D games a little spice of Dawn of the Dead. If you don't care, make the choice presented to you and enjoy it.

The lazy DM here says, "sure, why not?" and runs with it.

Dark Sun, Ravenloft, Spelljammer, Planescape, Eberron, these exist because they are not the default setting, they are different than the default fantasy D&D world.

As I said before, every D&D has a default setting. I think DMs should be allowed to have one in 5e and those that don't want it can do their own thing, as usual. I don't think I have much more to add than that.

Default settings make lore changes harder. If Spelljammer was set as a default setting, and you had to tell everyone who came to your game that you're not mucking about with spaceships and asteroids and phlogiston and that there's no elven fleet and that mind flayers are secretive dungeon denizens, it'd be super-annoying. Everyone who wants to have a different Jackalwere is possibly going to go through the same thing in 5e. I'd personally like a book that helps me tell stories and grows my imagination, not one that makes that harder.

It's worth noting that the team may be cleverer about this in practice than the article lets on, but I'm clearly skeptical.

 

[Remathilis]

D&D has always been fatasy-genre fanfic mashup awesomeness when you take the whole thing into account. Even Gary shmushed together wargames and Tolkein and the Elric saga and Greek myth and cheap plastic chinese toys...there is no semblance of genre purity in this game.

So... the 2e Monstrous Manual?

Ecology: Kirre are a favorite game of many hunting tribes of races who live in the forests of Athas. The meat from kirres is some of the finest on all of Athas, and it is sought after by many. Aside from a source of food, the kirre also has other uses when killed. The creature's horns can be cut off and used as spear heads; in some cases, they can be carved into ornate daggers. Also, the tail of a kirre has a sharp, bone spike at its end that can be fashioned into either an arrow head or a dart.

As noted, marilith are the strategists of the Blood War. They are in charge of devising all tactics to be used during the battles and coordinate the activities of all true tanar'ri (save the mighty balors, of course). Due to the chaotic nature of the tanar'ri, it is not really possible to coordinate their activities, but the marilith are charged with it, nonetheless.

Habitat/Society: Death knights are former good warriors who were judged by the gods to be guilty of unforgivable crimes, such as murder or treason. (For instance, Krynn's Lord Soth, the most famous of all death knights, murdered his wife so that he could continue an affair with an elfmaid.) Death knights are cursed to remain in their former domains, usually castles or other strongholds. They are further condemned to remember their crime in song on any night when the moon is full; few sounds are as terrifying as a death knight's chilling melody echoing through the moonlit countryside. Death knights are likely to attack any creature that interrupts their songs or trespasses in their domains.

Like the other species of lycanthrope found in Ravenloft, two varieties of werebat exist -- natural (or true) and infected. True werebats are those creatures who have been born to werebat parents. The parents may be either true or infected werebats themselves, but the offspring of any two werebats is a true werebat. In those rare cases when a child is born with one werebat and one human parent, there is a 50% chance that it will be a true werebat and a 25% chance that it will be an infected werebat.

Dark nagas tend to be loners, but can form stable family groups of two or three; they are bisexual, and give birth to a squirming mass of many wormlike young which they promptly abandon to fend for themselves. Intelligent enough to know they can prevail against few creatures in the Realms alone, dark nagas work with other evil creatures, such as orcs, hobgoblins, drow, phaerimm, beholders, and the like. [...]

Every adult member of this race possesses the following magical abilities, each usable three times a day: astral spell, plane shift, and ESP. All function as the spell of the same name (as cast by the lowest-level caster possible). These inherent abilities also enable the pirates to pilot ships with series helms. These abilities function only in wildspace, not in the phlogiston.

I guess it worked for 2nd edition...

 

[Hussar]

Just to keep things straight. I want monster lore. Monster lore is cool.

I do not want setting specific monster lore in core books because then that setting specific lore becomes canon and can never be changed lest the canon police come screaming out of the walls.

Heck look at any of the wotc monster articles where they suggested changing monster lore. Or the current front page thread about driders being a curse.

Once you enshrine setting canon then everything that comes after that must obey that canon. Every module, every supplement, every Dragon or Dungeon article.

It completely chokes off any creativity.

 

[Quickleaf]

To take some of the monster design theory being tossed around and pin it down, here is what I'd like the jackalwere writeup to look like:

Description jackalwere behavior & psychology, terrain, organizational structure & culture, treasure carried/stored, ecological niche, track & sign, common tactics, and possible allied/companion hunters.

Then three hooks a DM can choose from about how they fit in the overall lore of D&D:

• In the default Forgotten Realms setting, jackalwere are created by the demon lord Graz'zt thru dark magic corrupting the animal spirits of jackals. They serve as underlings to the Lamias, greater creations of Graz'zt, along with his six-fingered cultists.
• In other settings, such as Greyhawk, Mystara, or Dark Sun, jackalweres fit in more with pseudo-Egyptian cultures, and may be favored priests who worship the dark god Set.
• In other settings, like Ravenloft or Planescape, jackalweres may be the result of a terrible curse on anyone who steals from a dying man and lets him perish. Their mimicked human calls are an attempt to plead the gods for mercy from their curse, unwittingly attracting more victims who they cannot help but slake their bloodlust on.

Let FR be their vehicle for all the default stuff as it seems to be going, letting FR bear the burden of any default effect. Use definitive language with FR monster lore, e.g. "jackalweres are created by the demon lord Graz'zt." With example monster lore for other settings, however, use conditional language, e.g. "may be." Let it be up to the non-FR DM to decide which, if any, of the proffered monster lore fits into their campaign.

 

[Remathilis]

Just to keep things straight. I want monster lore. Monster lore is cool.

I do not want setting specific monster lore in core books because then that setting specific lore becomes canon and can never be changed lest the canon police come screaming out of the walls.

Here's my problem: what's the difference?

All lore creates a narrative. At some point, it all creates canon. Anytime a dm asks "where did this come from?" Setting specific lore is born.

Take kobolds. We've debated everything about them: hairy or scaly, tail or no, blood of dragons, children of Kutumark or Tiamat. What is true for one setting isn't for another. So what lore do we include? Do we keep the blood of dragons thing, or remove it for our old school friends? What do they look like? Do they kill gnomes on site? Who is their god and is it the same god as dragons? What is generic enough to put in that won't stifle the creative dm?

For that matter, do we get rid of all nongeneric monsters? What about the tarrasque? Death knights? Demons, devils and daemons? Color coded dragons? I mean, what is the difference between a drow, a githzerai, a warforged and a shadar Kai except the book it originated in?

It just seems that nearly anything can be viewed as "campaign specific" to someone. At what point does it stop being generic?

 

[Hussar]

The difference is that all the monsters you just listed have been allowed to change, and sometime radically change. Anything which enshrines campaign specific canon can never be changed.

Funnily enough though, this seems to be limited largely to Planescape canon. No one tells anyone that 3e kobolds are wrong and not really kobolds because they look nothing like AdnD kobolds. No one says that 3e dragons aren't really dragons because of their radically different power levels from AdnD 1e dragons.

But change a niche monster like an eladrin and suddenly you're a monster who is eating DnD's babies.

 

[Campbell]

Edit: Wrong thread.

 

[Savage Wombat]

Funnily enough though, this seems to be limited largely to Planescape canon. No one tells anyone that 3e kobolds are wrong and not really kobolds because they look nothing like AdnD kobolds. No one says that 3e dragons aren't really dragons because of their radically different power levels from AdnD 1e dragons.

Please don't start. If this were a comment about 4e you'd be edition-warring.

 

[steelsteve]

While i'm liking the addition to lore, especially since it reduces the amount of pure material that i will have to buy to catch up (i'm like 2 years into the hobby guys) i'm worried that the 'new monsters' that will undoubtedly be added are going to have to be used in this other way.

My wallet is about to be much happier