D&D 5E We've had dragons, elementals, and demons - so what iconic evil is next?

[JeffB]

Yeah, I called Vecna/Undead in the ROD thread.

And with Acererak on the cover of the DMG and the cannibalism of the setting tropes and themes by WOTC, that would not surprise me either.

 

[Gilladian]

Humans. The evil wizard has replaced the true heir with a duplicate that he controls. No one believes the adventurers who have stumbled on a piece of the plot, and even they have no clue who the real villains are.

 

[iserith]

I'm going to go with cultists. We haven't had any cultists yet... right?

 

[Li Shenron]

Well, we are having an AP about fans of dragons wanting to take over the world, followed by fans of elementals wanting to take over the world, and then fans of demons wanting to take over the world, so I would bet that after that there will be fans of undead wanting to take over the world.

 

[meomwt]

The next adventure will be The Isle of Dread, previously undiscovered in the Sea of Swords. There'll be kopru, dinosaurs, pirates in service to the Zhentarim and possibly a giant ape or two.

 

[delericho]

Humans. The evil wizard has replaced the true heir with a duplicate that he controls. No one believes the adventurers who have stumbled on a piece of the plot, and even they have no clue who the real villains are.

That would be great. Though they'd make it a doppelganger, of course.

 

[Zaran]

It's the Forgotten Realms. Maybe they should do an Evil that fits with that setting like the Zentarim or the Red Wizards.

 

[Trickster Spirit]

It's the Forgotten Realms. Maybe they should do an Evil that fits with that setting like the Zentarim or the Red Wizards.

Doubtful. Given the constant bitching about setting them in the Realms at all they need to keep it easily convertible to other settings, so anything that'd be out of place in a generic homebrew world won't be in the spotlight.

 

[I'm A Banana]

My money is on aberrations.

And we'll get psionics with it.

It's the Forgotten Realms. Maybe they should do an Evil that fits with that setting like the Zentarim or the Red Wizards.

Man, I'd love an actual "THIS is why you should play FR"-style adventure, but one of the costs you pay with being the default is that you have to be pretty generic - anything you can't plop into Greyhawk or Dragonlance is likely off the table.

 

[AmerginLiath]

Creatures of The Far Realm would be a fun thing to base a story around. If we assume most aberrations are from the Far Realm initially, it raises a lot of interesting questions. Namely, for beings that came from a place of incomprehensible madness, they're remarkably well-adapted to our universe. Mind flayers must prey on creatures with a very human or at least terrestrial biology, so they must have come into being in response to the discovery of creatures with brains. Why is the Far Realm so much better at adapting to our world, when the merest glimpse of theirs drives us insane? It's really concerning. Is the Far Realm actively trying to "infect" our own realm?

...actually, didn't 4th edition bring up the concept that the Far Realm is a disease, and psionics is our realm's cure? That was a cool idea.

Given what Mearls has mentioned about using Adventure Paths to introduce mechanics, psionics is specifically what he spoke about (that's the same conversation where I believe Crawford first brought up the "Alice in Wonderland" concept that we'll soon be seeing too), so seeing a Far Realm-inspiring AP introducing psionic mechanics would actually probably be the most reasonable guess. In fact, given the true "invasion from beyond" nature of it, I could even see how it could be done more freeform than the others (and thus more able to be used across the D&D Multiverse), depending on which studio WotC chooses to work with as a designer – there are lots of indy designers out there who could help craft as much a D&D version of "Masks of Nyarlathotep" as one can get (or so one dreams, in one's madness)...