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

[Scribe]

There's a sort of nihilism death spiral that can take over on this path. "Everything is made up and the lore don't matter!" Well, sure, but then there's no reason to invest in it, attach to it, no reason to elevate it, no reason to do better, endless excuses for phoning it in and messing with stuff because nothing matters anyway so who even cares.

When people stop caring about canon, why would Wizards. Your statement here is exactly correct. Why elevate the product, the art form, when it can just be mailed in, slapped with a D&D or Forgotten Realms logo, and called the next best thing?

 

[TiQuinn]

There's a sort of nihilism death spiral that can take over on this path. "Everything is made up and the lore don't matter!" Well, sure, but then there's no reason to invest in it, attach to it, no reason to elevate it, no reason to do better, endless excuses for phoning it in and messing with stuff because nothing matters anyway so who even cares.

That's toxic. It treats the idea of caring about something as if it is a mistake - "Don't care. It doesn't matter to anyone else. What are you a child?"

Screw that noise with a duck. That's not the kind of future I want to see in this hobby. I want the fans' passion to be rewarded and treated as the precious and amazing thing that it is. It's not even how Saturday morning cartoons work anymore (if things like Gravity Falls are any indication).

If a villain coming back is going to wreck engagement like that, it's arguably not worth it.

I don't know that Sammaster coming back is necessarily going to be like that (like I said, I have a lot of tolerance for whatever earned reason they want to put forth), but I think that it is a legit concern. Especially when we're involving time travel, which is the hackiest of hacky excuses.

Well, fans who’ve been invested into a particular outcome have said the same things about the other universes I’ve mentioned, and then some.

Again, I go back to this is as much a shared creation as ever there was one. Treating it as a carefully planned universe was never the intent. I think you can choose to see it as nihilistic and toxic but I think that’s an unnecessarily negative approach when you can choose what you like for your own table.

 

[Parmandur]

I don't know that Sammaster coming back is necessarily going to be like that (like I said, I have a lot of tolerance for whatever earned reason they want to put forth), but I think that it is a legit concern. Especially when we're involving time travel, which is the hackiest of hacky excuses.

We have no idea other than his picture being in some previews. Seems early to stake a hill to die on, when the options for how and why just based in the established rules of the PHB and DMG are manifold.

 

[Necropolitan]

Again, I go back to this is as much a shared creation as ever there was one. Treating it as a carefully planned universe was never the intent. I think you can choose to see it as nihilistic and toxic but I think that’s an unnecessarily negative approach when you can choose what you like for your own table.

Ed Greenwood did in fact carefully plan the Forgotten Realms and lots of effort was put into ensuring there was consistency up to this point.

The Year of Rogue Dragons was both its own series, the events that happened during it affected a bunch of other novels (Queen of the Depths was the direct result of aquatic dragons going insane), and it resulted in numerous storylines afterwards (the character of Brimstone started off the events of the Brotherhood of the Griffin series for example).

when the options for how and why just based in the established rules of the PHB and DMG are manifold.

No they're not.

The rules on Liches and resurrection are quite clear, neither works for bringing back Sammaster.

His Phylactery was destroyed and he died more than 200 years ago, he can't come back under the rules.

 

[TiQuinn]

Ed Greenwood did in fact carefully plan the Forgotten Realms and lots of effort was put into ensuring there was consistency up to this point.

The Year of Rogue Dragons was both its own series, the events that happened during it affected a bunch of other novels (Queen of the Depths was the direct result of aquatic dragons going insane), and it resulted in numerous storylines afterwards (the character of Brimstone started off the events of the Brotherhood of the Griffin series for example).

Ed Greenwood is not the only arbiter of Forgotten Realms canon, nor has he fully published his version of his world. Not all of the 300 novels that you mentioned previously were written by Ed Greenwood and they don’t all exist in his world. In fact, if I recall, his vision of Moonshae is very different from what Douglas Niles wrote. He’s also stated he wasn’t a fan of the Spellplague and doesn’t consider that part of his version.

Fans of FR are constantly having to reconcile two different versions of Faerun, and really, Ed’s has been detailed in very piecemeal ways through the years.

 

[Parmandur]

Ed Greenwood did in fact carefully plan the Forgotten Realms and lots of effort was put into ensuring there was consistency up to this point.

The Year of Rogue Dragons was both its own series, the events that happened during it affected a bunch of other novels (Queen of the Depths was the direct result of aquatic dragons going insane), and it resulted in numerous storylines afterwards (the character of Brimstone started off the events of the Brotherhood of the Griffin series for example).


No they're not.

The rules on Liches and resurrection are quite clear, neither works for bringing back Sammaster.

His Phylactery was destroyed and he died more than 200 years ago, he can't come back under the rules.

What if someone in the Cult of the Dragon used Wish...?

 

[gban007]

Ed Greenwood did in fact carefully plan the Forgotten Realms and lots of effort was put into ensuring there was consistency up to this point.

The Year of Rogue Dragons was both its own series, the events that happened during it affected a bunch of other novels (Queen of the Depths was the direct result of aquatic dragons going insane), and it resulted in numerous storylines afterwards (the character of Brimstone started off the events of the Brotherhood of the Griffin series for example).


No they're not.

The rules on Liches and resurrection are quite clear, neither works for bringing back Sammaster.

His Phylactery was destroyed and he died more than 200 years ago, he can't come back under the rules.

He has come back once before, for better or worse, in Dragonheir Silent God's, though apparently leaves ambiguity as to whether was after his Lich death or not, though Elminster feared he could return.
Ones I've seen return over time are Bane, Bhaal, Myrkul, Kelemvor, is always possible sammaster becomes some sort of demigod.

 

[Necropolitan]

He has come back once before, for better or worse, in Dragonheir Silent God's, though apparently leaves ambiguity as to whether was after his Lich death or not, though Elminster feared he could return.
Ones I've seen return over time are Bane, Bhaal, Myrkul, Kelemvor, is always possible sammaster becomes some sort of demigod.

That's probably noncanon and was back when he was a living person.

As for the deities you mentioned each of them coming back was given the gravitas it required and didn't violate established rules of the setting.

What if someone in the Cult of the Dragon used Wish...?

There are no established Cult of the Dragon characters capable of casting Wish and even if there were it would be a massive copout in a similar way to time travel or the multiverse.

 

[Parmandur]

There are no established Cult of the Dragon characters capable of casting Wish and even if there were it would be a massive copout in a similar way to time travel or the multiverse.

So nothing would prevent it in principle based on the rules of the Forgotten Realms or D&D.

 

[Necropolitan]

So nothing would prevent it in principle based on the rules of the Forgotten Realms or D&D.

There's nothing in the rules that would allow Sammaster to come back.

Wish doesn't count since it's a DM fiat spell:

You might be able to achieve something beyond the scope of the above examples. State your wish to the DM as precisely as possible. The DM has great latitude in ruling what occurs in such an instance, the greater the wish, the greater the likelihood that something goes wrong. This spell might simply fail, the effect you desire might only be partly achieved, or you might suffer some unforeseen consequence as a result of how you worded the wish.

Citing Wish is like claiming that the rulebook doesn't say a dog can't play basketball.