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

[pukunui]

There is in Planescape, where there being multiple Prime worlds is part of the setting. Sigil contains residents from Athas, the Forgotten Realms, Grayhawk, etc.

But that's still not MCU style. Krynn, Oerth, Athas, and Toril aren't parallels of each other. They're different planets orbiting different stars. Yes, you can reach them by traveling other planes, but you can also reach them by traveling through "space" without ever leaving the material plane.

I don't feel like I can really speak for TSR, but, as far as I can tell, the closest WotC has come to an MCU-style multiverse is via Fizban's, with the echoes of the First World and the parallel great wyrms each of them contains.

 

[Parmandur]

Really? Do you have any examples? I started playing D&D in the 90s and more more familiar with the older D&D novels than I am with the pre-2e game products, but I am not aware of any MCU-style parallel world multiverse stuff in old D&D books.

It's in the AD&D 1E PHB and DMG very explicitly, and in great detail in the Manual of the Planes: the way the MCU made a fo at it goes way back in comics and pulp fiction the TSR peeps loved to read.

 

[Parmandur]

But that's still not MCU style. Krynn, Oerth, Athas, and Toril aren't parallels of each other. They're different planets orbiting different stars. Yes, you can reach them by traveling other planes, but you can also reach them by traveling through "space" without ever leaving the material plane.

I don't feel like I can really speak for TSR, but, as far as I can tell, the closest WotC has come to an MCU-style multiverse is via Fizban's, with the echoes of the First World and the parallel great wyrms each of them contains.

The below snippet is from a longer treatise on the history here:

B. The AD&D Rule Books Expand on the Multiverse
The Gygaxian multiverse was then slightly expanded upon and codified in the AD&D Player's Handbook (1978). Of importance we see the following in the PHB:
There exist an infinite number of parallel universes and planes of existence in the fantastic "multiverse" of ADVANCED DUNGEONS & DRAGONS. ... The Prime Material Plane (or Physical Plane) houses the universe and all of its parallels. It is the plane of Terra, and your campaign, in all likelihood. ... The Ethereal Plane is that which surrounds and touches all of the other Inner Planes, the endless parallel worlds of the universe, without being a part of any of them. (PHB 120).

The Dungeon Master's Guide (1979) was more explicit. The section "TRAVEL IN THE KNOWN PLANES OF EXISTENCE" states the following:
The Known Planes of Existence, as depicted in APPENDIX IV of the PLAYERS HANDBOOK, offer nearly endless possibilities for AD&D play, although some of these new realms will no longer be fantasy as found in swords & sorcery or myth but verge on that of science fiction, horror, or just about anything else desired. How so? The known planes are a part of the "multiverse". In the Prime Material Plane are countless suns, planets, galaxies, universes. So too there are endless parallel worlds. (DMG 57).

The DMG explicitly states that alternate planes in the Prime Material do exist, and states that other game systems that aren't fantasy (such as Boot Hill & Gamma World) can be used. There is even the concept that some planes would allow for breathable atmospheres between the "main planet" and the other planets and moons - someone was thinking of Spelljammer!

Later on, the DMG makes it explicit, with conversion tables to allow characters to go back and forth between D&D, Boot Hill, and Gamma World, and explicitly states that all possibilities of adventure are contained within the worlds of the Prime Material.
Similarly, there are places where adventurers can journey to a land of pure Greek mythology, into the future where the island of King Kong awaits their pleasure, or through the multiverse to different planets, including Jack Vance’s “Planet of Adventure”, where they hunt sequins in the Carabas while Dirdir and Dirdirmen hunt them. (DMG 112).

In essence, what was being codified in the text is what was already happening- tables were using D&D to play in all sorts of ways, and going between all sorts of fantastical worlds.

 

[Necropolitan]

But that's still not MCU style. Krynn, Oerth, Athas, and Toril aren't parallels of each other. They're different planets orbiting different stars. Yes, you can reach them by traveling other planes, but you can also reach them by traveling through "space" without ever leaving the material plane.

I wasn't saying they were MCU style.

 

[Parmandur]

The Prime Material Planes don't interact that way. You can't go from the Forgotten Realms to Greyhawk as easily as you could go from the Forgotten Realms to Hell and barely anyone on either world knows there are other Prime Material worlds. Even Elminster only visits other worlds in noncanon stories because Ed Greenwood knew there was no way to put that cat back in the bag.

The kitchen table visits of the Wizards Theee are canonical, insofar as "canon" means anything.

 

[dave2008]

What do you not like? To be transparent I know next to nothing about FR lore.

 

[pukunui]

The below snippet is from a longer treatise on the history here:

Thanks. I still wouldn't call that MCU style like what we're seeing in the latest Marvel movies or the Loki TV show. Yes, it talks about "parallel worlds" but I still think they're referring to something different. I take it as being that the Material Plane, the Ethereal Plane, the Outer Planes, etc are "parallel worlds". There's no mention of there being multiple parallel versions of Oerth, each with its own take on Mordenkainen and Tenser and Tasha and so on. That's what I mean by MCU-style parallel worlds.

I maintain that the closest D&D gets to a modern MCU style multiverse is:
a) the parallel sister worlds of Abeir and Toril*
b) the First World echoes mentioned in Fizban's

I wasn't saying they were MCU style.

Me: "I'm not aware of any MCU-style parallel world multiverse stuff ..."
You: "There is in Planescape ..."

That sure reads to me like you were saying Planescape was MCU style. But whatever. I don't want to belabor this point any further.


*Correct me if I'm wrong, but I think it was WotC who actually made Abeir its own thing during the 4e era. Prior to that, it was just a name that sometimes got added in front of Toril ("Abeir-Toril").

 

[Parmandur]

Thanks. I still wouldn't call that MCU style like what we're seeing in the latest Marvel movies or the Loki TV show. Yes, it talks about "parallel worlds" but I still think they're referring to something different. I take it as being that the Material Plane, the Ethereal Plane, the Outer Planes, etc are "parallel worlds". There's no mention of there being multiple parallel versions of Oerth, each with its own take on Mordenkainen and Tenser and Tasha and so on. That's what I mean by MCU-style parallel worlds.

Well, bit but it does stayed that there are endless parallel worlds:

"The Known Planes of Existence, as depicted in APPENDIX IV of the PLAYERS HANDBOOK, offer nearly endless possibilities for AD&D play, although some of these new realms will no longer be fantasy as found in swords & sorcery or myth but verge on that of science fiction, horror, or just about anything else desired. How so? The known planes are a part of the "multiverse". In the Prime Material Plane are countless suns, planets, galaxies, universes. So too there are endless parallel worlds." (DMG 57).

At a latter point, the Manual of Planes makes this really specific about the Prime Material, to the point of speaking of parallel Oerths and Earth's one could travel between.

I will say I don't think there was a very particularly useful accounting of this idea until Fizban's and the new DMG brought James Wyatt's First World model to bear, but that is more traditional than not. The MCU is getting this stuff from the same place Gygax and Ward did.

 

[Demetrios1453]

All that being said, FR is a D&D world, and it is meant to be adventured in. Sammaster is much more valuable to DMs alive/unalived (?) than dead and buried. He's an iconic character! He's a deranged, insane, megalomaniacal villain with grandiose plans to remake the world! He's fun!

A very good point.

Also, a Cult of the Dragon campaign allows a DM to bring in and feature dragons in a way that most other campaigns just can't, and then use them in interesting ways. Yeah, you'll still have metallics being allies and mentors of the party, and chromatics being antagonists, but you can also have metallics that fear death and are intrigued by Sammaster's teachings, or even metallics that have completely drank the kool-aid and be outright irredeemable foes of the group. Conversely, you could have chromatics who are disgusted with the idea of undeath and can become temporary allies of the party (although there's every chance they'll betray them after their goals are met!)

 

[Weiley31]

Sammaster is dead AND destroyed though!

That was 616 Sammaster tho. We now have 828 Sammaster to deal with now!