D&D General WotC: Novels & Non-5E Lore Are Officially Not Canon

At a media press briefing last week, WotC's Jeremey Crawford clarified what is and is not canon for D&D.

"For many years, we in the Dungeons & Dragons RPG studio have considered things like D&D novels, D&D video games, D&D comic books, as wonderful expressions of D&D storytelling and D&D lore, but they are not canonical for the D&D roleplaying game."

"If you’re looking for what’s official in the D&D roleplaying game, it’s what appears in the products for the roleplaying game. Basically, our stance is that if it has not appeared in a book since 2014, we don’t consider it canonical for the games."

2014 is the year that D&D 5th Edition launched.

He goes on to say that WotC takes inspiration from past lore and sometimes adds them into official lore.

Over the past five decades of D&D, there have been hundreds of novels, more than five editions of the game, about a hundred video games, and various other items such as comic books, and more. None of this is canon. Crawford explains that this is because they "don’t want DMs to feel that in order to run the game, they need to read a certain set of novels."

He cites the Dragonlance adventures, specifically.

 

[Mirtek]

Keep in mind that the person you're posing this question to said they regularly read Wikipedia plot summaries of movies so they don't have to watch them.

Is that really so unusual? Lastly a Resident Evil movie was on TV. I was not sure if I was up to date on that series and quickly looked it up and yes, I was indeed missing a movie inbetween the last I've seen and the one I was about to see. Fortunately the Wiki entry on the movie I missed was rather long and detailed, so I had no problem immediately follow the story of The Final Chapter without being confused where all the characters started off and how they got there from me having them last seen standing on some freighter with enemie helicopters approaching at the end of Aferlife. I haven't seen Retribution since then and feel no need to actively seek it out.

If I were to be dragged into the new Fast&Furios movie (it's no number 9 isn't it?) I would certainly not watch movie 2-8. I'd look for a summary that suffienctly prepares me from whaterver I've been missing since I saw my only F&F movie years (or is it decades already?) ago.

 

[Maxperson]

Such as? I haven't found any, other than the occasionally unique individual. Even the oft-touted Many Arrows orc kingdom wasn't actually good, just mostly stabile and not prone to random war with other races. And its founder was still evil.

I've already told you multiple times about very large differences. I'm not going to repeat myself. You can do the research.

Well, I guess we'll see when they release actual statblocks, won't we?

Sure. You can continue to hold out hope that they feel the same way about alignment as you do.

 

[Faolyn]

I've already told you multiple times about very large differences. I'm not going to repeat myself. You can do the research.

I have, for several different editions. And I've found next to nothing. What I have found is mostly evil creatures who aren't evil because they were raised by good creatures (and good creatures that fell to temptation and evil). Which, disturbing implications aside, strongly indicates that TSR/WotC feel that evil creatures won't turn to non-evil unless something forces them to, and that creatures that are evil are evil "just because".

Edit: I should point out that Obold Many-Arrows, the guy who created a "peaceful orc kingdom," is--according to the FR wiki--still chaotic evil. He didn't even get an alignment change to lawful or even neutral, despite organizing his people into a kingdom.

 

[Staffan]

IT is? Please give me a page and book quote. From Season 1-10 adventure league modules or any of the adventure paths books, which reference the Troubles and has the Troubles center stage as a plot point.

The Time of Troubles definitely happened in the 5e Realms. It is mentioned multiple times in the Sword Coast Adventurer's Guide, and we know this:

• It happened in 1358 DR.
• Gods were incarnated as mortals and went to war with one another in attempts to restore their divinity.
• Magic in general became unpredictable, and divine magic stopped working.
• Some gods were slain, and some mortals ascended to divinity to replace them.
• Cyric was a mortal during the Time of Troubles, and ascended as a result of how things got resolved.
• Helm guarded the celestial stairways during the Time of Troubles, preventing gods from returning to the Planes until the Tablets of Fate had been found.

None of these things is central to much of anything, which makes sense given that the Time of Troubles were over a century ago, and the world has had multiple similar-scale calamities since then. Some things that were previously known about the Time of Troubles that may or may not be canon in 5e:

• Torm and Bane battled it out in Tantras, and their mutual death lead to large portions of the city becoming wild or dead magic zones.
• Mystra tried to force her way into the outer planes, but was killed by Helm for doing so, causing a large wild magic zone in the Stonelands in western Cormyr.
• Bhaal was killed by Cyric using a sword that would eventually turn out to be a shapeshifted Mask.
• Myrkul tried invading Waterdeep.
• Kelemvor was a mortal at the time and was killed by Cyric, using the Mask-sword. Later events lead to his ascension as the new god of Death.
• Waukeen tried a plot where she gave up her divinity but got kidnapped as a result, leading to Lliira filling in for her until things got sorted.
• Cyric, Kelemvor, and Midnight (the woman who would eventually take Mystra's place), were all part of the same adventuring party for much of the time.
• The mortal Cyric called out an undead spirit of some sort as not being an actual ghost, because those who saw it didn't suddenly age.

 

[Henadic Theologian]

More vocal, less of a minority (in terms of numbers), and in more places. Meanwhile, I'm pretty sure this site is the only place still talking about this canon thing.

Its not.

 

[PsyzhranV2]

Its not.

Well, I posted that just before the WotC blog post came out, and I also linked the blog post on Reddit, and there's a fair bit of discussion going on Twitter right now, so I guess Chris Perkins just had to screw me over.

 

[Dire Bare]

I have, for several different editions. And I've found next to nothing. What I have found is mostly evil creatures who aren't evil because they were raised by good creatures (and good creatures that fell to temptation and evil). Which, disturbing implications aside, strongly indicates that TSR/WotC feel that evil creatures won't turn to non-evil unless something forces them to, and that creatures that are evil are evil "just because".

Edit: I should point out that Obold Many-Arrows, the guy who created a "peaceful orc kingdom," is--according to the FR wiki--still chaotic evil. He didn't even get an alignment change to lawful or even neutral, despite organizing his people into a kingdom.

It's been a while since I've read the Drizzt novels that dealt with King Obould Many-Arrows. But Obould wasn't good, or even not-evil, and he certainly wasn't peaceful. He was nation-building. His goal was to take the warring tribes of orcs that fought amongst themselves as much as others, and forge them into a united nation on par with the existing nations of humans, elves, and dwarves in the region. The storyline definitely dealt with issues of absolutism in fantasy race and culture, showing orcs as truly having a violent culture, but being just as capable of diversity as any other race. How well it managed that, YMMV.

EDIT: Sorry, on second reading it looks like you take more issue with the chaotic part of Obould's alignment than the evil part. It's probably your point, but it does illustrate how useless alignment is in D&D. I think Obould being characterized as chaotic evil is just fine, despite his nation-building being a more lawful act.

 

[Maxperson]

Well, I posted that just before the WotC blog post came out, and I also linked the blog post on Reddit, and there's a fair bit of discussion going on Twitter right now, so I guess Chris Perkins just had to screw me over.

I've been trying to get my password for GiantITP so I could post about it. I figured that the reason it wasn't being talked about was that no one actually brought it to the attention of the members of those sites. I guess I can stop now. Chris took care of it for me. Bloody dumb how GiantITP does its password resets. It shouldn't take me this long.

 

[FrozenNorth]

Then why add it back in with the very next book? WotC has a long history with (over)reactions due to vocal minorities.

Not sure I follow you: VRGtR doesn’t seem to have alignment more than Candlekeep mysteries, and the excerpt from Fizban’s seems to be backtracking from the MM, which is the last place dragon alignment was discussed.

To me, it seems that Fizban’s went from “Gold Dragons are Lawful Good” to “Gold dragons are typically Lawful Good” but here are a bunch of ideals, traits and quirks they may have, which may or may not be associated with a particular alignment”.

 

[Maxperson]

Not sure I follow you: VRGtR doesn’t seem to have alignment more than Candlekeep mysteries, and the excerpt from Fizban’s seems to be backtracking from the MM, which is the last place dragon alignment was discussed.

Sure it does. They are introducing new dragons which will have alignment and traits. They are also introducing more age categories for MM dragons, which will all have alignment in the stat block.

To me, it seems that Fizban’s went from “Gold Dragons are Lawful Good” to “Gold dragons are typically Lawful Good” but here are a bunch of ideals, traits and quirks they may have, which may or may not be associated with a particular alignment”.

But the gem dragons are not in the MM, so they will have alignment and traits.