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

[Parmandur]

I don't have anything to add yet, but it's particularly interesting because it does imply certain things, like if WotC did do a 5E Dark Sun, it would have Defilers - but the lack of mention of psionics (even as something like "strange powers") is perhaps revealing (esp. as back when the DMG was written WotC was thinking psionics would relatively soon be in 5E). Also Birthright gets a write-up, which I'd forgotten and is faintly surprising. Krynn is tied pretty specifically to the War of the Lance period too.

I think if/when they do Dark Sun, they will do up Wild Talents similar to Dark Gifts or Supernatural Gifts. Maybe reprint the Psionic Subclasses, maybe they will pull off a Psion of soem sort.

Birthright is still consistently included in their surveys about Settings and such, I think that WotC sees potential there for a "Political Machinations" genre booster that stands out.

If they do anything with Dragonlance, a big old reboot seems to be the order of the day.

 

[Quickleaf]

There's a big one hinted at in...

TASHA'S CAULDRON OF EVERYTHING

Planescape
(page 103) an image is captioned "In the City of Sigil, Guildmaster Rhys realizes that finding capable recruits is one of the main challenges of being a patron."

Rhys was originally a factol who, during the events of Faction War, was the sole surviving factol (IIRC) and became just a "guildmaster", thus this image/caption reinforces that Faction War is canon in the 5e conception of Planescape.

 

[Parmandur]

There's a big one hinted at in...

TASHA'S CAULDRON OF EVERYTHING

Planescape
(page 103) an image is captioned "In the City of Sigil, Guildmaster Rhy realizes that finding capable recruits is one of the main challenges of being a patron."

Rhy was originally a factol who, during the events of Faction War, was the sole surviving factol (IIRC) and became just a "guildmaster", thus this image/caption reinforces that Faction War is canon in the 5e conception of Planescape.

View attachment 141135

I dunno if we can assume anything about broader events in Sigil, but the most interesting part about this is it is a 5E illustration of a 2E Tiefling.

 

[Quickleaf]

MORDENKAINEN'S TOME OF FOES

Planescape

(page 213) The nigh-unstoppable inevitables serve a singular purpose: they enforce contracts forged in the Hall of Concordance in the city of Sigil. Primus, the leader of the modrons, created maruts and other inevitables to bring order to dealings between planar folk.

The Hall of Concordance is an embassy of pure law in Sigil, the City of Doors. In the hall, two parties who agree to mutual terms – and who pay the requisite gold to the Kolyarut, a mechanical engine of absolute jurisprudence – can have their contract chiseled onto a sheet of gold that is placed in the chest of a marut.

This is the first mention of the Hall of Concordance & the first time we see Kolyarut capitalized and referred to as a singular entity.

 

[ersatzphil]

Rhy was originally a factol who, during the events of Faction War, was the sole surviving factol (IIRC) and became just a "guildmaster", thus this image/caption reinforces that Faction War is canon in the 5e conception of Planescape.

Interestingly, the same chapter depicts Azalin much more in line with how he was in 2e, as opposed to how he's depicted in Van Richten's Guide.

The Eberron book also mentions Sigil in it's description of the Artificer class.

 

[Quickleaf]

I dunno if we can assume anything about broader events in Sigil, but the most interesting part about this is it is a 5E illustration of a 2E Tiefling.

Mhmm. Are you very familiar with the Faction War adventure?

 

[Faolyn]

Rhy was originally a factol who, during the events of Faction War, was the sole surviving factol (IIRC) and became just a "guildmaster", thus this image/caption reinforces that Faction War is canon in the 5e conception of Planescape.

Except that people who don't know Planescape might think that Factol is a name, whereas everyone knows what Guildmasters are.

 

[Parmandur]

Mhmm. Are you very familiar with the Faction War adventure?

Nope!

 

[Voadam]

It would be useful to also flag things that are different in 5e from other editions. Ravenloft would get a bunch of those flags.

 

[Ruin Explorer]

Rhy was originally a factol who, during the events of Faction War, was the sole surviving factol (IIRC) and became just a "guildmaster", thus this image/caption reinforces that Faction War is canon in the 5e conception of Planescape.

That's extremely worrying, given Faction War was complete trash to the point where Monte Cook has tried to excuse it more than once. He swears blind he was going to fix the trashfire it caused with the next adventure, but wasn't able to because they (I forget if they was WotC by then) didn't want to publish another one at that point.

They'd better have retcon'd in the Factions coming back to Sigil, and not going with the absolutely disgraceful setup they had in 4E Sigil (mentioned in the DMG2, in some detail), which has Sigil being run by incredibly boring, no-philosphy, no-attitude, no-style, zero cool three-letter-acronym agencies, like some sort of small, forgettable flyover-state city in the US in the 1970s or something. A diverse and wonderful thing replaced by the most boring possible kind of technocracy.

Honestly if they keep that, WotC won't see a penny from me until the next edition. Hell I might quit D&D for the entire time the current management team were in charge (possibly permanently) if they re-vandalized Sigil that badly, after specifically saying they weren't bound by trash from previous editions.