D&D 5E 5e isn't a Golden Age of D&D Lorewise, it's Silver at best.

[Hussar]

Heh. It’s funny about the point about mysteries in Forgotten Realms. I’m running Candlekeep Mysteries and one of my side plots that has arisen flows from the locations in the Shadowfell. Namely the Shining Citadel - the rumoured location where the Shadowfell was created.

I only heard about this while dumpster diving for lore about the Shadowfell as it relates to FR and stumbled across it on the FR wiki.

It has now become probably the capstone of my campaign.

So two things stand out for me. There are a TON of mysteries in FR if you look for them. Second, unfortunately most of these are buried in the mountain of material out there and without a wiki setup, probably very few people could find them.

So again, for me anyway, this is absolutely the golden age for lore. There is absolutely no way I could have run this campaign ten years ago. There is no way I could have learned about the Shining Citadel unless I randomly bought two or three different books and found the entries - and some of the references are from novels with no index.

Why on earth does WotC need to bang out new lore? I doubt anyone here has done more than scratch the surface of FR lore if you are limiting yourself to print.

Good grief. How much lore was there on the old WotC website? Dragon Magazine? Dungeon? Thousands and tens of thousands of pages of lore produced over the past thirty or forty years.

You can’t possibly do more than scratch the surface of that.

 

[Parmandur]

Incorrect - as of the 5E DMG, novels and video games were considered part of a setting's canon (page 4). But as of the 2021 statement those media are now separate canons from the tabletop canon. There were also a lot more nods to older settings in early 5E products than later on, that only serve any purpose if they expect folks to rely on older canon materials, and not stick strictly to 5E. Clearly they did have some rethinks between 2014 and 2021.

Proof text from the DMG aside, though, there hasn't really been any major shift in how products actually present material and make suggestions between ~2014 and the product released last week.

Though I will note that the Setting suggestions for Radiant Citadel are very willing to just upend traditional canon: the Mystara reference is a suggestion to simply place the Empire of Great Xing (which as one might suppose, is big) directly West of the Republic of Darokin. Or another to just put the fantasy version of the Philippines in the Sea of Swords or Sea of Fallen Stars wherever you feel like.

 

[JEB]

Even page 4 doesn't confirm that the old canon is standard and goes hand in hand with new material. It only states that "Official material" is "Assumed" to take place.

Does that mean the 2e novels or the 5e novels? Does that mean Baldur's Gate Dark Alliance and Demonstone or does it mean BG3 and Honor Among Thieves?

They don't specify any edition, just novels and video games. And since there were no explicitly 5E video games or novels when the DMG came out, that means earlier-edition video games and novels were assumed to be part of official Realms canon. If they only meant 5E at that time, they would have said so. As they did in 2021.

And also there's a keyword "Assumed". Doesn't mean it -did-. Because it's your version of the setting that you can change as you like, which they specify at the end of that very paragraph!

They distinguish the setting in "your campaign" from the official one, which by definition means there was an official standard version of the setting. And what's included in "official" changed between 2014 and 2021.

 

[Micah Sweet]

Where the aberrations from an alien realm reproduce in an absolutely alien way and can manipulate reality in awesome ways (creating the potential for even cooler Beholder-variant monsters than ever before)? Wow. I cannot imagine hating that. YMMV, indeed.

The 5e version obliviates the possibility of worlds of beholder-kin, as was posited in Spelljammer. I based an entire campaign on that idea. Individual dreamed up random monsters don't work for me.

 

[Micah Sweet]

I can’t think of a new thing Micah likes.

Well, that's just straight insulting.

5e is the best D&D ruleset to date from WotC. I'm very happy they created a solid base for better versions like Level Up (which I have many times gone on record as loving and is quite new. By the way). I really like 5e's take on a lot of monsters, as depicted in the MM (just not beholders in Volo's).

 

[Micah Sweet]

5e lore? Uhh....yeah that may be harder for me to source something.

Actually no, I liked some of the stuff in Fizbans.

Yeah, the gem dragons and their take on draconians was cool.

 

[Levistus's_Leviathan]

The 5e version oblivious the possibility of worlds of beholder-kin, as was posited in Spelljammer. I based an entire campaign on that idea. Individual dreamed up random monsters don't work for me.

No it doesn't. Volo's Guide to Monsters lists colonies of identical-looking beholders controlled by a "colony leader" as a possibility. H'Catha or another "planet of beholders" could easily just be a huge colony like that, maybe one where the "Hive-Mother" has died already and created a whole planet of independent beholders. Or, there could just be a planet where Beholders originated from and they invaded the main world of the setting from there. Or there's just something specific about that world that makes it more hospitable to beholders than normal. Or this culture of beholders on that world evolved to be less self-destructive. Or learned how to control their reality-warping powers better than the typical beholder.

That's really not hard for that concept. I understand disliking the change if you already liked the previous way, but 5e Beholder lore really doesn't "obliviate" the concept of worlds of beholder-kin.

 

[Micah Sweet]

Volo's Guide to Monsters lists colonies of identical-looking beholders controlled by a "colony leader" as a possibility. H'Catha or another "planet of beholders" could easily just be a huge colony like that, maybe one where the "Hive-Mother" has died already and created a whole planet of independent beholders.

Or, there could just be a planet where Beholders originated from and they invaded the main world of the setting from there. Or there's just something specific about that world that makes it more hospitable to beholders than normal. Or this culture of beholders on that world evolved to be less self-destructive. Or learned how to control their reality-warping powers better than the typical beholder.

That's really not hard for that concept. I understand disliking the change if you already liked the previous way, but the reason you list really isn't contradictory with 5e's beholder lore.

Fair enough. I just really don't like the idea of beholders spawning from their own dreams. I seems like a detail invented to allow them to make variants with an excuse.

 

[MonsterEnvy]

Well, that's just straight insulting.

5e is the best D&D ruleset to date from WotC. I'm very happy they created a solid base for better versions like Level Up (which I have many times gone on record as loving and is quite new. By the way). I really like 5e's take on a lot of monsters, as depicted in the MM (just not beholders in Volo's)

Ok I am sorry I made it too personal there.

But out of Curiosity could you elaborate on what you dislike about the Beholder lore?

Edit: Nevermind you elaborated already.

 

[Levistus's_Leviathan]

Fair enough. I just really don't like the idea of beholders spawning from their own dreams.

Fair enough. I was honestly baffled when I learned that beholders from early editions didn't function that way. To me, it just seems so unique compared to other monsters and interesting to think of the implications of. The 5e Monster Manual was the first D&D book I ever got, and beholders were the first monsters in the book to catch my eye, largely because of their new lore.

I seems like a detail invented to allow them to make variants with an excuse.

And that's a bad thing? In my opinion, giving reasons for variants to exist is a good thing. Always a good thing, even if it's added to the monster later. It makes them feel more real to me and justifies why there are variant versions of them, beyond "because we thought they were cool".

That same reason is why I love Mind Flayers and their variants so much. Their reproduction and psychic experimentation makes them feel unique, cool, and real.