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

[Halivar]

Most of us here have our big-boy DM pants and we don't need to be led by the hand on lore. We make our own creation stories, yada yada yada. For the vast majority of new DM's, adding some proper nouns to monster lore enriches the campaign design space by adding hooks for both adventures and random player inquiry. Easily ignored by the veteran DM, but incredibly helpful for the inexperienced DM.

 

[bogmad]

This is not a complaint, exactly, but I'd like to see the lore made a bit more flexible. I'd have the connections between monsters be expressed differently depending on which end of the connection you're looking at. Let's take the Graz'zt/lamia/jackalwere nexus:

• Jackalweres: "Jackalweres were created by a demon lord, to be servants for its favored minions. They are often encountered working as trackers and hunters in the service of powerful evil monsters."
• Lamias: "Lamias worship demon lords and are often accompanied by jackalweres who help them track and bring down their prey."
• Graz'zt: "Graz'zt's chosen children are the lamias, and he created the jackalweres to serve them."

Doing it this way has a couple of advantages. First, it means that there's less to remember in terms of which lore applies and which doesn't. If you're using jackalweres, but not lamias or Graz'zt, you don't have to change the jackalwere lore at all--just attach them to a different boss. Likewise, if you're using jackalweres and lamias, removing Graz'zt from the chain does not affect jackalwere or lamia lore. On the other hand, if you do want to use the Graz'zt link as written, it's all laid out for you in Graz'zt's entry.

Second, it encourages gradual revelations. PCs encounter jackalweres, make a lore check, and learn the jackalwere lore. Now they know to be on the lookout for the jackalweres' boss, but they don't yet know who that boss might be. And they know there might be demons involved, but not which demons or what they want. They get hints instead of answers. If they investigate those hints, they can be rewarded with specific details. Even if they don't, the world gains a bit more depth from knowing there's hidden information out there to be found.

Couldn't XP, but I like this approach.

 

[Li Shenron]

I'm all for more monster lore but I wish they would tie in abilities with specific lore.

The flip of the coin... if lore is tied to abilities it's hard to adapt monsters to a campaign where the lore is different, but at the same time it creates a nice association between mechanics and narrative.

Two things to consider however:

- more often than not, monster abilities are combat-related

- more often than not, monster lore is not combat-related

If the designers have to think long about how to tie lore with abilities, perhaps it's a sign they are already forcing it.

For the Jacklewere: how did Grazzt create them though... That is something best left for an adventure to discover.

I was thinking about a corrupted Awaken spell on a first group of jackals, then let them breed.

I am going to agree with the sentiment that named critters should not be in the descriptions of monsters.

Generally speaking I agree, but iconic D&D named creatures should probably be the exception. Zeus and Thor are not iconic D&D, but Grazz't or Demogorgon or Lolth or The Great Mother are (not sure if these specific examples might originally come from a non-D&D source, but I haven't heard about them outside D&D). They don't exist in all D&D settings, but if their origin is D&D, then IMHO they have a place in one of the MM, possibly even in the first one.

 

[Quickleaf]

I'm fairly certain this is the key reason they are doing this. For a lot of DMs, especially new DMs, it's easy to look at a monster and say "Ok, so it's a Sphinx...it's a lion with a human head...but...well, what do I use it for? When would it likely appear?"

This becomes especially bad for some of the really obscure monsters. I prefer connections between monsters thematically. Even if that theme didn't exist before. The connection between lamia and jackelwere is that they are both creations of Graz'zt now. They didn't have a connection before but now there's a reason to use them together. It makes them feel like they are part of something bigger now. Before they were two random weird creatures....now they are part of Graz'zt's family. You know where they came from.

I tend to agree with [MENTION=58197]Dausuul[/MENTION], that this is fine if the presentation is changed so that Graz'zt's name isn't dropped specifically in the jackalwere & lamia entries, rather alluding to demon lords. And
under Graz'zt's entry it can say "jackalweres, lamias, cambions, succubi, and six-fingered cultists number among the servitors of Graz'zt."

What seems off about the jackalweres being tied to Graz'zt is that jackalweres have been associated with dry lands, and they've always had an Egyptian vibe in my games. Graz'zt doesn't associate readily with deserts or Egyptian themes (unless they're rescinding him in 5e), but a god like Set fits that role quite naturally.

That's what I mean about the lore feeling a bit forced. Obviously it is easy enough to re-skin, but that means players who get used to the new lore now have it as a default assumption. "OK, jackalweres, (monster knowledge check) that means Graz'zt is behind this." To which I need to respond: "Not in my world." It's not that doing this once or twice is an issue, it's when it happens a lot that certain players can feel...undermined? I'm not sure what the word is, but there is a certain player type who like to have their game lore mastery be rewarded, and enough instances of me saying "Not in my world" as DM could be off-putting.

Now this would only be an issue for a DM who has a rotating player basis or who is in transition between groups (I happen to be in the first category).

 

[Johnny Champion]

Pretty excited about the path the new MM seems to be taking. Echo the thoughts on specific names for reasons mentioned. However, they can be named directly if the MM writers invoke phrases like "Legend states that a powerful demon lord, maybe Graz'zt himself was responsible for this abomination...". This way a DM has flexibility (as well as potential lore to follow) and rule lawyer players will take a back seat!

 

[Falling Icicle]

I like that they're providing a lot more background information for the monsters. It really helps to bring them to life and make them feel like more than just stats on a page. I also like that the provided fluff is easy to ignore if you want to replace it with your own.

 

[Olgar Shiverstone]

Bob the vampire, Grazzt the Demon Lord, Hank the Illithid, Jane the Medusa, and also including Pelor the Sun God, Zeus the thunder god ...

... are the new 5E iconic anti-adventurer party!

 

[TarionzCousin]

I like the story hooks. Lower crunch emphasis and more book real estate used on fluff. I like that. the one page entries for each creature, like in the Monstrous Compendium may be overkill.

For the Jacklewere: how did Grazzt create them though... That is something best left for an adventure to discover. Perhaps he enacted some fell curse, perhaps caused some invisible plague, perhaps crafted some alchemical tincture converting the helpless, some strapped captives into a devious magical conversion artifact, or he even bribed some dark god to do his bidding. Point being he was not the one who snapped his fingers and made them, he had them made...

(Emphasis mine) That is the one additional thing that I would like to see with this approach: answer the question "why/how?"

This is not a complaint, exactly, but I'd like to see the lore made a bit more flexible. I'd have the connections between monsters be expressed differently depending on which end of the connection you're looking at. Let's take the Graz'zt/lamia/jackalwere nexus:

• Jackalweres: "Jackalweres were created by a demon lord, to be servants for its favored minions. They are often encountered working as trackers and hunters in the service of powerful evil monsters."
• Lamias: "Lamias worship demon lords and are often accompanied by jackalweres who help them track and bring down their prey."
• Graz'zt: "Graz'zt's chosen children are the lamias, and he created the jackalweres to serve them."

This answers the "why/how?" question quite well.

I like that they're providing a lot more background information for the monsters. It really helps to bring them to life and make them feel like more than just stats on a page. I also like that the provided fluff is easy to ignore if you want to replace it with your own.

Agreed. The fluff isn't required; it's there if you want it.

Personally, I enjoy changing the background fluff to punish the players who assume everything in the monster manual is the same in my worlds.

 

[Remathilis]

This is not a complaint, exactly, but I'd like to see the lore made a bit more flexible. I'd have the connections between monsters be expressed differently depending on which end of the connection you're looking at. Let's take the Graz'zt/lamia/jackalwere nexus:

• Jackalweres: "Jackalweres were created by a demon lord, to be servants for its favored minions. They are often encountered working as trackers and hunters in the service of powerful evil monsters."
• Lamias: "Lamias worship demon lords and are often accompanied by jackalweres who help them track and bring down their prey."
• Graz'zt: "Graz'zt's chosen children are the lamias, and he created the jackalweres to serve them."

Doing it this way has a couple of advantages. First, it means that there's less to remember in terms of which lore applies and which doesn't. If you're using jackalweres, but not lamias or Graz'zt, you don't have to change the jackalwere lore at all--just attach them to a different boss. Likewise, if you're using jackalweres and lamias, removing Graz'zt from the chain does not affect jackalwere or lamia lore. On the other hand, if you do want to use the Graz'zt link as written, it's all laid out for you in Graz'zt's entry.

Second, it encourages gradual revelations. PCs encounter jackalweres, make a lore check, and learn the jackalwere lore. Now they know to be on the lookout for the jackalweres' boss, but they don't yet know who that boss might be. And they know there might be demons involved, but not which demons or what they want. They get hints instead of answers. If they investigate those hints, they can be rewarded with specific details. Even if they don't, the world gains a bit more depth from knowing there's hidden information out there to be found.

The problem with this setup is that it puts the useful monster lore in only one place. If I want to use jackelweres and want too find some allies that make sense, I now gotta scour the mm to find other monsters that mention jws and dig up all the demon lords to see which they serve. Too much searching and remembering. Give me proper nouns; I can change Grazzt to Xezbeth and Pelor to Lendinor on my own.

 

[Stormonu]

Eh, I do tend to like the idea of pointing out how certain monsters may work together, but the bit about Graz'zt makes me nervous, for two reasons. The big one is that "wall" between the lore and abilities won't stay. Designers and design principals will change, and someone somewhere down the road will ask "if we've tied this to that, why don't we enforce/back it up with mechanocs? to a lesser degree, I've had my share of run-ins with players that take this lore as gospel, and balk if you try to change their expectations. I'd rather leave most creatures origins murky or undefined. If its worth coming up in game, let me make up where this or that came from.