[UPDATED] RAGE OF DEMONS! New D&D Storyline Features Drizzt, Underdark, & Demon Lords!

Following Elemental Evil this fall, Rage of Demons will launch a new storyline featuring Drizzt Do'Urden, the Underdark, and various demon lords from the Abyss including old favourites like Demogorgon, Orcus and Graz’zt. This will feature on tabletop, console, and PC. "The demon lords have been summoned from the Abyss and players must descend into the Underdark with the iconic hero Drizzt Do’Urden to stop the chaos before it threatens the surface." It begins with the adventure Out of the Abyss, which releases on September 15th for $49.95, and is being designed for WotC by Green Ronin Publishing. (Thanks to Charles Akins for that last scoop!)

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Drizzt? WotC's Chris Perkins says: "Drizzt's role in the RoD story varies depending on the platform. In the TRPG adventure, the PCs are the stars."

Inspiration: "My inspirations for RAGE OF DEMONS were Lewis Carroll's Wonderland stories and EXILE, by R.A. Salvatore." [Perkins] So this is the Alice in Wonderland inspired story that's been previously alluded to.

Here's the full announcement.

"Today, Wizards of the Coast announced Rage of Demons, the new storyline for Dungeons & Dragons fans coming in Fall 2015. The demon lords have been summoned from the Abyss and players must descend into the Underdark with the iconic hero Drizzt Do’Urden to stop the chaos before it threatens the surface. Rage of Demons is the story all D&D gamers will be excited to play this fall, whether they prefer consoles, PCs or rolling dice with friends.

Following on the critically-acclaimed Tyranny of Dragons and Elemental Evil stories, Rage of Demons will transport characters to the deadly and insane underworld. Rumors of powerful demon lords such as Demogorgon, Orcus and Graz’zt terrorizing the denizens of the Underdark have begun to filter up to the cities of the Sword Coast. The already dangerous caverns below the surface are thrown into ultimate chaos, madness and discord. The renegade drow Drizzt Do’Urden is sent to investigate but it will be up to you to aid in his fight against the demons before he succumbs to his darker temptations.

Dungeons & Dragons fans will have more options than ever to enjoy the Rage of Demons storyline. The themes of treachery and discord in the Underdark are in Sword Coast Legends, the new CRPG (computer role-playing game) coming this fall on PC from n-Space and Digital Extremes. The epic campaign that drives Sword Coast Legends' story forces players deep into the Underdark and continues well after launch with legendary adventurer Drizzt Do'Urden.

For fans of Neverwinter, the popular Dungeons & Dragons-based MMORPG will bring a new expansion – tentatively titled Neverwinter: Underdark – in 2015. The update will see adventurers travel with Drizzt to the drow city of Menzoberranzan during its demonic assault as well as experience a unique set of quests written by the creator of Drizzt, R.A. Salvatore. The expansion will initially be released on PC and will come out on the Xbox One at a later date.

Players of the tabletop roleplaying game can descend into the Underdark in Out of the Abyss, a new adventure which provides details on the demon lords rampaging through the Underdark. Partners such as WizKids, GaleForce 9 and Smiteworks will all support Rage of Demons with new products to help bring your tabletop game to life. To really get in the mind of Drizzt, fans will have to check out Archmage, the new novel by R.A. Salvatore, scheduled for release in early September.

“Rage of Demons is a huge storyline involving all expressions of Dungeons & Dragons, and we’re excited to bring players this story in concert with all of our partners,” said Nathan Stewart, Brand Director at Wizards of the Coast. “I can’t wait to see everyone interact with one of the world’s most recognizable fantasy characters: Drizzt Do’Urden. Descending into the depths won’t exactly be easy for him, and D&D fans will get their mettle tested just like Drizzt when they come face-to-face with all the demon lords.”

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[Agamon]

I remember buying Gaz 3, The Principalities of Giantri in Toys'R'Us and thinking - "No way, they actually produced books telling you about the world..." I think it was the only Gazeteer I bought for that setting, as I then moved onto Greyhawk as it was the ADnD world, and of course I wanted to play the Advanced version of the game, but I shoulda stuck with The Known World as Greyhawk soon dried up...

Edit: I think it was the massive Greyhawk map which really sold me...

Yeah, I think I only bought Gaz1, and followed the same path. But when I wasn't playing in my own homebrew, the one time I played FR, or the one Spelljammer/Planescape multi-world game, it was always Greyhawk, and the lack of support never really phased me. There's lots to work with, just with the AD&D stuff.

 

[Mercule]

The problem is for me and other FR-haters alone, and that problem is that WotC has chosen a setting that we hate for all their adventures. It's not a problem from Realms-lovers or people indifferent to the setting an adventure is set in. But for me, if I spend a dollar on a product set in a world that I despise, the message I am sending is "Give me more FR!!" (At least, unless I buy it used and my money doesn't feed WotC... but I want to send them my cash.)

This is just a double-whammy. Yes, I'd probably do a little happy dance if the Realms was officially sacked -- in the same way I'd be happy when the screaming baby finally falls asleep.

Really, though, I'd be unhappy about any setting that had taken over like the Realms has, even Greyhawk or Eberron, both of which I love. At its core, D&D should remain world agnostic. Go ahead and publish settings and setting-specific adventures. Core products shouldn't do more than use names to fill in blanks. If an adventure requires me to do more than sub out a name for a faction, place, or major NPC, it's not generic. Maps are a compromise because a truly generic map isn't any easier to add to a structured world than borrowing one, but things like the Stone Bridge (in PotA) are jarring unless they're important to the adventure (and if they are, it ceases to be generic).

The idea that they plan to use non-setting books to detail the Realms vexes me. I don't want to buy crap for the Realms. I accept that most source books have something I'm not going to use, but it's usually at least a thematic match -- I didn't use Wu Jen, but it made sense to have it in the Complete Arcane. What do the Harpers have to do with PotA?

 

[S_Dalsgaard]

Sure! Speaking only for myself, and fully acknowledging that these aren't insurmountable issues, my hate stems from a number of things.

• Appropriation. The FR have appropriated a lot of stuff that was not FR material to begin with. Why on earth were perytons and leucrotta relegated to the Monsters of Faerun supplement in 3e? Or how about Kara-Tur? In 1e's OA hardback, it's explicitly set in the World of Greyhawk. The recent elemental-themed adventure (PotA) was perfectly themed for GH, but now it seems as though FR is appropriating the Elemental Evil theme, too.
• Super-uber-Mary-Sue npcs. This is probably the most common FR complaint- the setting is about npcs, not the pcs. Of course Elminster never needs to show up in your game, but what the hell is he doing when the demon princes crawl out into Waterdeep? If not him, what about any of the dozens of other epic npcs that are sprinkled throughout the landscape? This may be less true now post-3e, I don't know, but given that Salvatore just raised, like, all his characters from the dead in a recent novel, I think we know how long death sticks in the FR... at least, for npcs.
• The cheapening of formerly awesome elements in D&D. I'm specifically thinking of the contrast between the Drow as originally presented and the FR treatment of them. In all fairness, 1e UA allowed Drow as a pc race, but they were incredibly overpowered. Turning them into a 'legit' pc race, probably due to the popularity of Driz'zt, made them extremely flaccid lettuce instead of stiff, spiny artichokes.
• Dominance of the setting market. I've stated my opinion upthread a couple of times that FR is the most popular 'standard' setting largely because it gets thirty times as much support as any other standard setting (by which I exclude things like Dark Sun, Eberron and other worlds with a very different tone). This results directly in other settings not getting support, which leads to them falling in popularity because what's this Greyhawk you speak of?, and this leads to more support for the popular setting- FR- all over again. It's a vicious feedback loop. If I want to purchase an adventure from WotC that I can fit into my game easily (by which I mean a not-weird-setting adventure), then it's pretty much FR or nothing right now.

There are probably more, but those are what immediately came to mind.

Thanks for your response. I can surely understand your concerns and I somewhat agree with your qualms about super-NPCs (although that can be said about most older campaign settings, especially Greyhawk), although it IMHO is easily solved by nerfing them.

 

[HonorBoundSamurai632]

It has been proven to be the most popular setting because, when they started publishing it, they spent the next decade actively promoting the heck out of it while actively neglecting, or sometimes even consciously undermining, other settings (hello, Castle Greyhawk). I've made this point before in other threads, but of course Greyhawk doesn't have half the popularity of the FR; it hasn't had anywhere close to half the support in, like, almost 30 years!

Again, thank-you. This is the exact thing I've been saying.

 

[justinj3x3]

Again, thank-you. This is the exact thing I've been saying.

Yup

 

[Agamon]

Since I am reminiscing, I'll mention Forgotten Realms. I bought the Forgotten Realms grey box campaign setting probably about 89 or so, and it was my campaign world of choice for several years. I loved the look of the books, and the setting had a lot of mystery and potential to it. It also had support and I lapped up the Waterdeep supplement and a couple of others also (though Waterdeep was always my favorite of the supplements.) However, the problem with Forgotten Realms and gaming for me was that it was a living world, meaning the supplements and the novels kept advancing the timeline. Rather than producing a static world that you could invest in and then use, they produced a world you had to keep rebuying. That soured me* on the setting as an RPG setting. And is, actually, one of the reasons I like Golarion as a setting is because, other that the results produced at my game table, the world remains the same. Which means that when my kid's character establishes and builds a temple of Erastil near Sandpoint, I don't have to worry about other supplements coming along and putting something else there. Static settings easily become more personal as you use them, compared to living, fluid settings which keep resetting themselves.

*Soured on the setting is not the same as hating the setting. I just don't think its actually a good investment, at this point, for a table-top role playing gamer.

The problem is, in order to continually support a setting, it needs to move along, not stay static. Otherwise, you're going to see a book about mannerisms and fashion in Verbobonc. Because, if it's static, new books are only going to include more detail. What color are the Viscount's socks, I wonder?

The cool thing is, if you liked a setting at a certain time, it's pretty easy to just use the material from that time and ignore everything else. They're even making it easy for non-grognard collectors with pdfs at DTRPG.

I'm running my 5e game in 3e FR. It could have easily been in 1e or 2e FR, or even 1e Greyhawk or Mystara, but I wanted use the cool Silver Marches book I've had for years and never used.

 

[Staffan]

I'll start by disputing the assertion that FR, GH and Mystara are all that similar. FR is very Renaissance-style high fantasy. GH is much more gritty Dark Ages in style, and Mystara is supposed to be a pastiche of our world in D&D terms. Sure, there are similarities, but to me (and maybe not to anyone else), the differences are glaring.

Sure, there are differences. But here's basically how I view the various settings' proximity to "generica":

Basically, it's like saying that two different dry red wines taste differently. Sure, they do, but neither of them tastes like beer, and if you're going to be offering two different drinks you're probably better served by offering one type of wine and one type of beer than you are offering two types of red wine. And if you're adding a third, how about coke instead of another type of beer or wine?

 

[Agamon]

The pushing of FR over Greyhawk stems from the Lorraine Williams days at TSR. Promote the stuff not created by the guy you just ousted. So, from that, FR snowballed into the D&D's biggest setting, especially after the video games, like Baldur's Gate, and the novels. It became the most popular setting by a large margin, and nothing has come along to uproot that.

You can complain about the good ol' days of Settingpalooza, but the fact is, FR is the money maker, even back in the heady 2e days. Going against something tried and true is a big risk.

 

[justinj3x3]

The pushing of FR over Greyhawk stems from the Lorraine Williams days at TSR. Promote the stuff not created by the guy you just ousted. So, from that, FR snowballed into the D&D's biggest setting, especially after the video games, like Baldur's Gate, and the novels. It became the most popular setting by a large margin, and nothing has come along to uproot that.

You can complain about the good ol' days of Settingpalooza, but the fact is, FR is the money maker, even back in the heady 2e days. Going against something tried and true is a big risk.

Which is a shame because Greyhawk is the home to much of the games lore and deserves to be the primary D&D setting IMO. That does not mean I don't agree that at this point WOTC would be fools not to use FR. It's just too bad for us Greyhawk fans...

 

[Agamon]

Which is a shame because Greyhawk is the home to much of the games lore and deserves to be the primary D&D setting IMO. That does not mean I don't agree that at this point WOTC would be fools not to use FR. It's just too bad for us Greyhawk fans...

The day the Blumes and Williams screwed Gary out of his company was a sad one, for sure.

The way Greyhawk is, though, I think the fans should be happy it's been mostly hands-off. It was meant to be a skeleton setting to be fleshed out by DMs, not every nook and cranny detailed, like they did with FR.