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Message: <blockquote data-quote="GarrettKP" data-source="post: 7779970" data-attributes="member: 6811472">I’ve never seen them say the obelisks are from Crawford’s home game, and I’ve seen members of the staff treat them as something more (Mearls said he couldn’t talk about them during a reddit AMA, implying they are to be paid off later.)Having seen some of the pages being spread around by folks with review copies. There is another prominent obelisk in Saltmarsh. On top of that, Tharizdun plays a part in the adventures (yes I know these are old adventures, but still).My theory is that Tharizdun is the big bad of the “D&DCU” ala Thanos. And I think they have done a good job setting that up covertly. He (or his cult) has played a part in two major adventures now (Princes and Abyss). And, assuming 5e is keeping some of the 4e multiverse lore with the Dawn War, his influence extends to almost every adventure, even if it is just a small connection. The way I see it, there are two major Adventure branches that have some crossover, but mainly work parallel to each other. Tyranny of Dragons, Storm Kings, and Tomb of Annihilation have a connecting through line that ties them together. SKT directly involves the outcome of Tyranny, and connects to Annihilation through the Ring of Winter plot. Princes of the Apocalypse and Out of the Abyss are directly tied by DeVir, the cultist of Tharizdun. I am pretty confident that The Descents Adventure will directly tie into Out of the Abyss (Perkins said a Devil focused “response” to Abyss was planned and I think that’s what this is). The outlier right now is Dragon Heist and Mad Mage (and Strahd, but that’s a separate setting outlier and the only adventure that doesn’t have a prominent black obelisk as far as I’m aware). There’s some connections if you squint, like the cult of Asmodeous being big players in Waterdeep (which might directly connect to The Descent). One branch has a lot of Tharizdun influence in it. And I think there’s a chance these two branches overlap in the future in a major multiverse story involving Tharizduns attempts to escape his prison Demi plane. And I think in the end the Obelisks will be revealed as anchors in the material plane Tharizdun uses to spread influence. If 4e lore is being retained (and we haven’t really see anything to say the Dawn War isn’t being retained) then Tharizdun has a major connection to Demons, Primordials, and the Far Realm. A lot of the obelisks have been found in connection to those themes. One in the actual Elemental Cults lairs, one in a demon infused underdark, one literally housing a demon in Chult, and most recently one inside a mansion infused with Far Realm influence. To me, at worst there’s two meta plots going on and one involves Tharizdun. But I think he will cause the two branches to connect eventually.</blockquote>

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