D&D 5E Making sense of D&D's Lore, History and Cosmology

[TheAlkaizer]

The past few threads that I've created reflect the fact that in the last few months, I started diving in D&D lores. In all my years of DMing I mostly just borrowed the monsters from the manuals without reading too much of their stuff, and I would interpret them in my own settings. However, I've got interested in some of D&D's lore and as mentioned, I'm now trying to get a good understanding of it. I'm making good progress, but I have a few issues:

1. The information is split between editions. This include the 4th edition and its different cosmology, so I tend to be selective about that edition. There's some cool stuff in the 2nd edition, but a lot of it is never referred to again in further editions or often contradicts stuff from the 3rd or 5th edition.
2. It's hard to separate what's the general cosmology and lore of D&D and what's tied to the Forgotten Realms. I have no interest whatsoever in the Forgotten Realms and I'll often read some information about some character or event only to realize later on that that's only relevant in the story or timeline of the Forgotten Realms.
3. Some topics are especially hard to look into. The origin story of races and stuff like that is pretty easy to find and separate between editions. But everything that relates to the outer planes, the demons, the devils, the deities is such a clusterfuck. I've been doing some notetaking and I keep having to go back and erase stuff.
   Greater Deities, Intermediate Deities, Lesser Deities. How godhood works? I've read stuff about having to have a divine spark, or that it's just related to the devoutness and number of your followers. I'm unsure what characterizes each level of divinity and how one ascends. What are primordials? This is an example.

So, I'd say that my question is something close to: how do you make sense of that humongous clusterfuck that is D&D's lore? What do you prioritize; the most recent edition, the most complete one? Do you mix and match the material of different editions, which one works well together? Do you have any reliable websites, sources or wikis that are not too influenced by the Forgotten Realms and pertain more to very general D&D lore?

Thank you.

 

[Charlaquin]

I think conventional wisdom is to use the stuff you think is cool, ignore the stuff you don’t, and don’t worry too much about what continuity it’s from.

 

[BookTenTiger]

Whatever is relevant to the characters, I would use and figure out with the players. Whatever is not relevant to the characters I don't worry about.

 

[prabe]

I think @Charlaquin offers good advice, here. I have created my own setting, and I have tended to default to the 5E cosmology, because that's less to convert, but I've cherry-picked from previous material, altered existing material to fit my setting, and written my own material. Basically, use your own taste and judgment. Unless your players are deeply invested in the lore, they're not likely to notice or care--ask any DM how much setting material players actually read ...

 

[Don Durito]

I don’t. It’s a box to rummage around in for tools not something to worry about. I feel no obligation to use any of it.

 

[cbwjm]

I use whichever edition is most recent if I'm running in a published setting, if that setting is in the latest edition. If I'm running dragonlance or dark sun then I'd use their own cosmologies and ignore the rest.

If I'm homebrewing up something new then I will either use the standard or create my own. Since 4e, I will often use that as the base since I find it to be. more simplistic and easy to understand and therefore run, assuming play even reaches the planes beyond the prime.

 

[aco175]

I tend to place more stock in the new stuff. The new rules on characters make changes to the way the world runs. Although I do find that 5e Forgotten Realms (FR) allows me to just keep anything in the older editions I like. They seem to specifically leave new stuff out on purpose, so the little nuggets in the follow-on books are less useful that a new world book.

As far as cosmology and things having to deal with gods and devils, I do not use this as much and the PCs in my games do not encounter gods as all. This leaves me to use any of the older stuff I need to make the game fun. I tend to skip over most of this unless a player wants to get into it more. There is just some general overarching ideas on how the planes work and dealing with them.

 

[Voadam]

A bunch of options.

1 Each world has its own cosmology and lore, so dark elves are different in Eberron compared to Greyhawk who are different from Dragonlance exiled outcast non-drow "dark elves". You can go with lore by world so you pick up 2e Birthright and read the applicable stuff from there about their gods and magic and specific planes and such and ignore the other lore from D&D. There can be contradictions though even within a setting so you will still need to pick what you are going with.

2 You can go with lore by edition from the core so 4e has the Dawn War and the Axis cosmology while AD&D and 3e had the Great Wheel and Basic D&D has its spheres and immortals.

3 You can go with many theories and PCs do not know the truth so gods might be conceptual supreme beings, high CR outsiders mechanically beyond most mortals, or giants with lots of hype who PCs can wrestle with face to face.

4 Go with mixing and matching what appeals to you. Tack on the Feywild to the Great Wheel even though they are not canonically together.

5 Take cosmology and lore from something else, Pathfinder, Warhammer, Palladium, Game of Thrones, Earthdawn, whatever and run with it. Mix the Pathfinder First World fey realm with stuff about the Feywild if you want.

 

[JEB]

@TheAlkaizer , to answer your question on resources... the D&D Lore Wiki, that I contribute to, is cataloging official, general D&D lore. We usually leave the setting-specific stuff to other wikis, and take an edition-neutral approach otherwise. It's a tricky task at times, but D&D fandom seems to lack any other similar resource, so hopefully it can become something that helps folks like you out. (And if anyone reading this is interested, we could really use some help...)

 

[ccs]

So, I'd say that my question is something close to: how do you make sense of that humongous clusterfuck that is D&D's lore? What do you prioritize; the most recent edition, the most complete one? Do you mix and match the material of different editions, which one works well together? Do you have any reliable websites, sources or wikis that are not too influenced by the Forgotten Realms and pertain more to very general D&D lore?

Thank you.

Oh, that's easy.
As the DM I just pick & choose the stuff I like best. I don't care what edition it came from, if it's setting specific (for ex; FR), if it's been overwritten a few times, etc. If something I like better comes along? Then I shift to that. And if I don't like any of what's been written on something? I'm 100% fine with making stuff up.
I also don't care if what 've picked/made up doesn't align with the current version of a setting (again, FR as the example) - because I'm not running TSR's FR, WoTC's FR, or even Ed Greenwood's FR. I'm running CCS's FR, maybe inspired by those others. Or Ravenloft, or Darksun, or....

Concerning the gods & grand cosmology end of things? Honestly I waste very little thought on it as that stuff is almost never within the scope of the campaigns I run. So, as the players/characters will never learn the actual truth of "how it all works", I don't owe them any real explanation & thus don't need to worry about it.
This + my pick & choose method from above, combined with usually rolling with however my players envision it has worked fine for decades.

As a player?
I'm happy to roll with whatever the DM decides. If they don't decide? Then I'll just default to my pick & choose/make stuff up method as necessary & they can stop/correct me as they wish.