D&D General The Purple Dragon Knights are tied to an Amethyst Dragon (confirmed)

[Snarf Zagyg]

What is the source for this? I'm not asking because I doubt the veracity, but because I'd like to erase that source from the face of Oerth, no, I mean Yarth erm... Earth.

Scary movie voice ....
The source is coming from .... within this forum!

Spoiler

TSR Post in thread 'Q&A with Gary Gygax'

Feb 26, 2005

OH-erth, orth, erth or oith? How do you usually pronounce many Greyhawk terms? I usually concider the "O" to be silent (Oeridian being pronounced er-RID-eean). But then, I didn't create the world, I just like to use it

Say it as "Oi-th" as if you were from Brooklyn, and that's the way I pronounce it. That annoys all who take a fantasy world far too seriously

Heh,
Gary

• Col_Pladoh

(Before you think he might have just been joking, there are other sources too.)

 

[Scribe]

Really it's the only way to explain how everyone gets a different campaign in the same world.

Quite literally never needed to be explained in the first place.

 

[Misanthrope Prime]

What do you not like? To be transparent I know next to nothing about FR lore.

Historically, the purple dragons were just the name of the human military of the nation of Cormyr. Cormyr itself is basically like your standard fairy tale Arthurian goodly feudal kingdom, and is a pretty mundane setting as far as Dungeons & Dragons go. The officer corps of the purple dragon army are known as the purple dragon knights and they are your typical chivalric gentlemen with a focus on equal parts diplomacy and inspiring the troops under their command.

By contrast, the amethyst dragons are a relatively obscure species of dragons with crystal scales, psychic powers, a neutral outlook, gravity manipulation powers and an obsession with the outer planes. They're basically planescape creatures that would be more at home in Sigil than Cormyr, and there's no reason that they would have any interest in an officer corps of a mortal human army.

Literally the only thing linking them is one group is called the purple dragons and the other group happens to be literally purple dragons. That's it. That's not enough to justify a team up

 

[Parmandur]

What is the source for this? I'm not asking because I doubt the veracity, but because I'd like to erase that source from the face of Oerth, no, I mean Yarth erm... Earth.

Gygax would tell people he pronounced it like Bugs Bunny.

Gygax was, after all, playing games, Greyhawk has a certain sense of humor to it.

 

[Parmandur]

Literally the only thing linking them is one group is called the purple dragons and the other group happens to be literally purple dragons. That's it. That's not enough to justify a team up

I mean, sounds like a good enough justification for RPG purposes.

 

[Parmandur]

@Parmandur quoted a snippet from one in ... oh boy ... a multi-part (like five?) essay I wrote on this.

But the original Gygaxian multiverse was like the MCU. In other words, there were an infinite number of parallel words- containing all possibilities. This allowed (for example) all possible home campaigns, so your home campaign in Greyhawk going through Tomb of Horrors existed in the same general multiverse as someone else's home campaign in Greyhawk going through Tomb of Horrors, and both existed in the same general multiverse as Boot Hill.

Oerth and Aerth and Yarth and Uerth and our Earth, in all possibilities, also existed in the multiverse (as well as Faerun etc.).

It is a really funny cultural evolution that the multiverse transitioned from being something in grungy, pulp "outsider" art to literally Micky Mouse stuff within my lifetime.

 

[Demetrios1453]

Historically, the purple dragons were just the name of the human military of the nation of Cormyr. Cormyr itself is basically like your standard fairy tale Arthurian goodly feudal kingdom, and is a pretty mundane setting as far as Dungeons & Dragons go. The officer corps of the purple dragon army are known as the purple dragon knights and they are your typical chivalric gentlemen with a focus on equal parts diplomacy and inspiring the troops under their command.

By contrast, the amethyst dragons are a relatively obscure species of dragons with crystal scales, psychic powers, a neutral outlook, gravity manipulation powers and an obsession with the outer planes. They're basically planescape creatures that would be more at home in Sigil than Cormyr, and there's no reason that they would have any interest in an officer corps of a mortal human army.

Literally the only thing linking them is one group is called the purple dragons and the other group happens to be literally purple dragons. That's it. That's not enough to justify a team up

But it's also not too much to deny a possible team up either. You could argue all day that an oil-based puree of a nut-like legume and a stabilized mix of milk and an ancient Mesoamerican drink shouldn't go together, but in the end Reese's Cups still exist.

Either they're going to explain it in the text, or - gasp - you can use your imagination to come up with all sorts of interesting ways for the team up to originate.

 

[Necropolitan]

Either they're going to explain it in the text, or - gasp - you can use your imagination to come up with all sorts of interesting ways for the team up to originate.

No, it's on WOTC to make it make sense because as it is it's an absurd change.

 

[Kobold Avenger]

I don't care much for FR lore, but I feel they should change some aspects of it over editions.

I think they're no longer considering anymore that Dwarves couldn't be Wizards before and no longer acknowledge any lore about why they couldn't and why that changed.

And I wouldn't consider Amethyst Dragons to be that obscure, they're just outside the core 10 Dragons. They're less obscure than Deep Dragons.

 

[Demetrios1453]

No, it's on WOTC to make it make sense because as it is it's an absurd change.

Have you ever been to a fusion restaurant? Or do just you pooh-pooh the idea because they're combinations you hadn't thought if before?