D&D 5E Vecna: Eve of Ruin Coming May 21st!

[Micah Sweet]

She has an association with Mordenkainen, has a high profile amongst current D&D players, is female, thus addressing the gender imbalance, and her witchy vibe is currently fashionable. Having appeared in a recient adventure would seem to make them far more likely, not less. (also applies to Elminster and Volo, and Mordenkainen, kinda).

I think that counts for more than who palled up with who in a magazine that was published before current players' parents were born.

Yeah. You gotta think like a marketer. WotC has priorities after all.

 

[Henadic Theologian]

What about Tasha?

And surely Volo has gained a few levels by now?

Its a matter of a preexisting alliance between Archmages from multiple settings, with shared goals of protecting the multiversal and the balance.

Tasha's a loose canon who plays by her own rules. Volo's records history, he doesn't make history.

 

[Henadic Theologian]

She has an association with Mordenkainen, has a high profile amongst current D&D players, is female, thus addressing the gender imbalance, and her witchy vibe is currently fashionable. Having appeared in a recient adventure would seem to make them far more likely, not less. (also applies to Elminster and Volo, and Mordenkainen, kinda).

I think that counts for more than who palled up with who in a magazine that was published before current players' parents were born.

Not if the entirely point is to celebrate that long standing connection between settings as justification for more multiverse focus and nostolgia bait.

The trio serves a purpose, a function, its something they point to from the ancient depths of time to justify there future plans while celebrating the history of the D&D multiverse.

 

[Parmandur]

Doctor Who, 1970

Star Trek, 1967

(since Star Trek took about 3 years to swim the Atlantic, they actually aired in the same year in the UK). Plot similarities probably reflect zeitgeist, not plagiarism.

Doctor Who and Star Trek were still not quite mainstream pop culture in 1970, but geek culture. Now they are mainstream pop culture, I suppose.

 

[Parmandur]

I wonder what year Greyhawk and Dragonlance will be set in.

Back in the 2E era "D&D Multiverse", the timelines of the worlds pretty much kept up with each other year for year.

The Realms has had a 100-year timeline advance, though. So, I'm interested to see where this places the timeline of Greyhawk and Dragonlance in relation to the Realms.

Ghosts of Saltmarsh reset the timeline to the original Folio. Any callback to Ghosts of Saltmarsh, since this is a 5E greatest hits compilation, will therefore likely be the same. Ditto for Dragonlamce being around 351.

Timey-whimey shenanigans.

 

[Parmandur]

Iggwilv is unlikely to be involved. She’s plot important in Wild Beyond the Witchlight already. And doesn’t really pal around with other big wizards.

So, she's plot important in one of the likely lead in Adventures, you say?

 

[Parmandur]

Doctor Who, 1970

Star Trek, 1967

(since Star Trek took about 3 years to swim the Atlantic, they actually aired in the same year in the UK). Plot similarities probably reflect zeitgeist, not plagiarism.

Looking into it a bit more, seems that Michael Moorcock, one of Gygax's favorite writers, is credited as just about the first person to use multiverse as a word in the current pop culture sense:

"One example of an epic and far-ranging fantasy "multiverse" is that of Michael Moorcock, who actually named the concept in a 1963 science fiction novel The Sundered Worlds. Like many authors after him, Moorcock was inspired by the many worlds interpretation of quantum mechanics, saying, 'It was an idea in the air, as most of these are, and I would have come across a reference to it in New Scientist (one of my best friends was then editor) ... [or] physicist friends would have been talking about it. ... Sometimes what happens is that you are imagining these things in the context of fiction while the physicists and mathematicians are imagining them in terms of science. I suspect it is the romantic imagination working, as it often does, perfectly efficiently in both the arts and the sciences.'"

Parallel universes in fiction - Wikipedia

en.m.wikipedia.org

 

[Henadic Theologian]

Ghosts of Saltmarsh reset the timeline to the original Folio. Any callback to Ghosts of Saltmarsh, since this is a 5E greatest hits compilation, will therefore likely be the same. Ditto for Dragonlamce being around 351.

Timey-whimey shenanigans.

Didn't Ghosts of Saltmarsh borrow an adventure in Mystara?

 

[Henadic Theologian]

So, she's plot important in one of the likely lead in Adventures, you say?

Witchlight/Domains of Delight are not one of the settings mentioned.

That being said she might appear in the Adventure, but not as one of the 3 Archmages, but rather her Archfey form or via an intermediary or clone or something.

 

[Parmandur]

Didn't Ghosts of Saltmarsh borrow an adventure in Mystara?

One of the Adventures in the anthology was a Basic one from the magazines, sure. Sll seven Adventures had advice on where to fit them in different Settings, even gives a hex number t reference for placing Saltmarsh on the Expert Set map. But the core Gazateer is for Greyhawk in the original timeframe.