• SECOND most expensive LARP in history - beat out by North Korea's house rules game of Paranoia, which has been going on since the 1950s...

In the default setting of the Fourth Edition, there's a grim dimension only reachable by magic and named the Shadowfell. Almost devoid of living creatures, it teems with all manner of undead, and characters who die end up there before fading away. Fine so far, it's a standard mythical "Land of the Dead". Except that every detail of the ordinary world is mirrored in the Shadowfell. Every ordinary building has a Shadowfell ruin and every port has a silted-up equivalent choked with rotting equivalents of ordinary ships. Obviously Shadowfell is not some magical dimension, but just the future after a disaster that killed everything without doing much large-scale damage. The buildings are ruined not because of mystical corruption, but because they've been sitting around for decades without maintainance. Presumably the disaster was a Zombie Apocalypse, with magical side effects that keep resurrecting dead characters decades later. All the magic that takes people into the Shadowfell is actually time travel. It naturally follows that the all-wilderness dimension known as the Feywild is just the past, before the invention of agriculture.

• No, no, I think we're barking up the wrong tree. It's one of our unifying WMG's: re-read that description. Tell me this mythic "Shadowfell" world is not, in fact, Nosgoth.
• Said Apocalypse was possibly caused by Atropus. (Or its 4e version, anyway.)
  • Open Grave says Atropus really does exist in 4e.
• The Shadowfell is really the Dark World◊ of A Link to the Past's (and now the 4E default setting's) Light World◊. The reduced damage, increased hit points, etc. also lend themselves to 4E masquerading as a Zelda game-world. The Feywild is the Golden Land before being corrupted by Ganon.
• Aw, hell. Having only skirted around the edges of 4e, this is the first I've heard of this. Unfortunately, it mirrors exactly what is happening in the current 3.5e campaign I'm running. Damn it.
• Shadowfell is not new. It existed in previous editions as the Plane of Shadows, at least in Forgotten Realms. It hasn't really changed much at all.
  • And Dolurrh in Eberron. Face it, to get a description of the Shadowfell just Ctrl+ C, Ctrl+ V the description of Dolurrh. It then follows, from the addition of action points to the core mechanics, that Eberron is actually a parasite universe, and will end up being the sole remaining setting by 10th edition (with the exception of things like Dark Sun and Spelljammer, which are clearly stages of Eberron's future). Fortuitously, this will annihilate all memory of Drizzt.
    • Sounds about right. Even if Eberron doesn't completely displace the other realms, they'll probably just reintroduce spelljammer to make them all part of one 'verse, and then whatever caused the Day of Mourning will end up happening again at the same time as the latest mystra dies, and Toril and Eberron will end up merging.
  • Canonically, in Forgotten Realms, Shadowfell merged with The Plane of Shadows, hence the similarities. The Plane Of Shadows originally didn't really have that many undead, at least of the traditional types. Shadows and the like, sure, but not zombies.
  • But the Birth Right campaign introduced the Shadow World which...did serve as a mirror of the living world populated by the undead, including a bunch of zombies.

The Rule of Three determines everything that structures the Outer Planes; the Unity of Rings says everything works in circles. We have the Material Planes, the Inner Planes, and the Outer Planes (yay, Rule of Three). The Astral Plane connects the Prime Material with the Great Wheel of the Outer Planes. The Ethereal Plane connects the Prime with the Inner Planes... so what connects the Inner and Outer? Rule of Three says there must be three transitive planes; Unity of Rings says there must be something connecting the Inner and Outer Planes. Thus, the Ordial Plane: a transitive plane that connects energy with belief. The origin of souls? The true seat of divinity? The source of divinity? The home of the Lady of Pain? Couldn't say, since no portals ever lead there - but maybe Her Serenity wants to keep it that way...

• The Far Realm?
• The Inner and the Outer Plans do not connect directly. They only connect indirectly in this order Outer > Astral > Prime Material > Ethereal > Inner. Plus the elements on the Outer Planes are made of belief (like everything else there.)
  • Just as the Great Wheel contains more than three planes, yet is circular, and the Inner Planes are ordered as a sphere with melting reality toward the edges of each plane, there is no reason to expect everything to align to a 3 or a ring. That said, it's possible the Planescape cosmology is incomplete, representing either a "known world" or else the three-dimensional representation of an upper-dimensional reality. At that higher-dimensional reality they have a more accurate "Rule of Three" and "Rule of Circles" but with their own shapes and numbers. Our reality can be imperfectly described by the Rule of Three and the Rule of Circles but our reality is actually just a sliver of a more complete reality.

• While we're on the subject...

The Rule of Three applies to everything. So we have the Multiverse, and the Far Realm, and... what?

• Illithids come from the future. In 4E, all abberations come from the Far Realm. Therefore, the Far Realm is the future, which makes the third realm the past.
• The Far Realm is a sort of Anti-Reality. The Abyss is best described as an anti-reality. Therefore the Far Realm is the Abyss, and the World of Darkness is the third realm.
• There isn't a third. The entire point of the Far Realm is that it doesn't follow the rules.

Sure various demon lords are former Primordials, but it wasn't until Tharizdun created the Abyss they sprung up. It's likely that they had the capacity for good and evil like the gods, but it became a fight between two factions, where both sides had to resort to some pretty awful tactics to try to win. Granted, they wanted to destroy the world (or let it be destroyed by the Elemental Chaos), but the world didn't have life on it until the gods put it there (and presumably the elemental creatures like the Giants and Titans would be able to survive the resulting cataclysm, given that many are found in the Elemental Chaos). Or hell, the whole "them willing to let the world be destroyed" might have been a smear campaign, and while some were willing to destroy the world as part of the natural order, others might have been willing to let it play out, but got caught up in a brutal war. But the gods made sure to only tell of the former Primordials. And in the few pages this troper read in the Forgotten Realms Campaign setting, the various Elemental Gods have been retconned into Primordials.

• Whenever I think of the Primordials, I think of the Norse Giants. Powerful antagonists to the gods, elemental affinities, by and large destructive jerks, but not all bad.
• Confirmed, to an extent, by the Manual of the Planes. Only a few are evil, most are unaligned. (Partially Jossed, because none are good-aligned).
  • But it was a god (Tharizdun) who brought evil to Chaos, not a Primordial. So the skew in the alignments of the Primordials is the fault of the gods.

Asmodeus is supposed to have rebelled against the god he served and been imprisoned in the Nine Hells, along with his devils. Fine so far. Except that in the fourth edition he has become a god, unlike in the previous editions. There are several problems with this. If the other gods could imprison him, surely they could prevent him from achieving divinity. And if they couldn't, what's he still doing in the prison? It's more logical to assume Asmodeus is merely pretending to be a god, as part of an elaborate scheme to escape. That assumption makes no changes to the game mechanics either.

• Who is to say that during the Apocalypse of Atropus, when so many gods where slain, Asmodeus did not find a method to steal this divinity? or perhaps a literal deal with the devil was made to get asmodeus on the side of the gods for such a confrontation? I would imagine only the gods/DM know for sure. what of all the new gods who did not exist before? from whence did their divine sparks come hmm?
• Bizarrely enough, part of this was canon in 3.5; Asmodeus was the only one able to go up against one of the Elder Evils, Zargon the Returner, because he wasn't susceptible to the god-killing abomination's god-killiness, permitting him to seal Zargon in rock. Presumably the end of the 3.5 reality allowed Asmodeus to steal Zargon's power to add to his own, while the gods were otherwise occupied either training or battling their replacements (Nerull, for example, is mentioned as the ex-God of Death in Open Grave) and couldn't stop him gaining complete ascension.
  • The Zargon thing is a silly retcon of an existing creature (non-deity) from the module B4: Lost City. In that work Zargon was just a boss type Lovecraftian monster, and otherwise Asmodeus was still just a thinly-veiled reference to the Christian devil Lucifer. So depending on your edition, things are different.
• Manual of the Planes confirms Asmodeus was a treacherous angel who rebelled against his god. Only a few bits and pieces are left. As to becoming a god, well, if the PCs can do it, powerful NPCs can definitely pull it off.
• It's been suggested that He Who Was, the god Asmodeus served and rebelled against, was the greatest of the gods. He imprisoned Asmodeus in hell with his dying breath. The other gods granted Asmodeus godhood because they needed him in the war against the primordials, though when not fighting the primordials he's still confined to hell. It's possible this suits him just fine; so long as he's imprisoned, he's free to scheme and plot without the other gods bothering him. He likely could get out if he wanted to, but just doesn't want to. Yet.
• In the earliest versions of D&D, Demon Lords and Archdevils were just as capable of granting clerical spells as gods, and evil clerics primarily paid homage to them.

A friend just proposed this while I was talking about the Transformers Shout Outs in the Modron book. What could be more fitting?

• That is just made of win and awesome. Too bad Mechanus bit the big one during the Edition Shift.
  • Nah, it just didn't like the new cosmology and bailed early. It's hanging around with Autochthon these days.
    • Although there's a sort of "Micro-Planescape" summary of the old planes in the new Manual Of The Planes...it's possible that the Astral Sea is less than 10% unexplored, and contains most, if not all, of the old planes.
    • Hell, it's possible that it's not even 1% explored: You just don't know how much of what you don't know you don't know, that's one of those things about not knowing.
  • They made a reference to Mechanus, though more as a legendary lost plane. I was entertaining notions that it might be Autochton
• Also, Limbo is a giant, sentient, thing as well, actively opposing Mechanus. When they come to blows, Mechanus morphs into a plane-sized Tansformer.
  • And you thought a Transformer the size of a planet was a big deal. Plus, Mechanus is Steampunk.
    • Steampunk Transformers = best thing ever.

First of all, the move is pretty much just a raw surge of passion that overcomes stuff effecting you, which is a lot like how the robots in TTGL work. In addition, thanks to the vague wording of the effect, Iron Heart Surge can be used to end anything that effects you in some way. This can allow you to: do the impossible, break the unbreakable, touch the untouchable, see the invisible, ROW ROW FIGHT THE POWAH! Not to mention that if misused, it could indeed destroy the universe. Imagine if a Warblade were to use Iron Heart Surge to end the Sun to stop its gravity and light from effecting him. There are countless ways in which Iron Heart Surge could cause catastrophic damage to the universe; ending godly magic, ending universal or planer effects, ending various laws of physics even! The only time this doesn't work is when a DM invokes Rule 0. They stop this horrible destruction and make things more cynical as a result. It follows then that DMs are the agents of the Anti Spirals, put here to stop this kind of power from being misused.

• Though the wording of the rule can be taken to mean an effect targeting you specifically, and cannot be used on effects targeting anyone besides you or not specifically targeted at you...
  • Anti-Spiral! RUN!

Think about it: there are a large number of fast-breeding monstrous races with short, violent lifespans. If the Orcs and the Kobolds and the goblins kept breeding and getting killed, then their souls would continuously be making their way into their domains. So as more souls come into hell and the abyss, more souls become fiends, thus replenishing their stock.

• That makes an almost scary amount of sense. Sounds like a paladin concept once found on /tg/ - he spent his time challenging other paladins to duels to accelerate their ascension to the ranks of the angels. The general assessment was that with a decent DM, he'd fall like the motherfucking extinction of the dinosaurs.

In an earlier rulebook, it was stated that Asmodeus consumed the souls of those who refused to believe or follow the gods. If he were to get enough, he would eventually recover from the wounds of his Fall. He would even send his Avatar out to cause unbelief. Now, Myrkul created the Wall For the Evulz, but it has stopped Asmodeus from recovering in this fashion.

• Still, Kelemvor could find a less eternity of pain and suffering way to do it surely. I mean, just make it an eternity of nothingness and just say their suffering when all they're doing is wailing in boredom.
  • Since Asmodeus has found a different way to restore himself by absorbing a god; the Wall of the Faithless is no longer needed, and thus no longer exists in 4th Edition.

Yeah, OK, Doctor Who WMGs are overdone, but hear me out. The golothoma is a critter that eats you with its shadow (you can see it from a link on this page). Now, most people would just say that's magic. This troper disagrees; the golothoma obviously has a bond with the Vashta Nerada, which devour individuals caught in the shadow and provide some of their components to the golothoma, which in return provides them with a safe spawning ground (let's compare: a tree, a horrific giant snake monster...).

• ... The rise of Pun-Pun
• ... Vecna's ascension to a new tier of Godhood.
  • Being Kicked Upstairs to a higher rank of godliness and thus having less influence on day-to-day affairs of wizardry would explain the death of Vancian Magic.
• ... The destruction of the Cosmic EGG posited in the Immortal's Handbook.
• ... It's actually just an alternate universe. Everyone else is running merrily along just fine as we used to.
  • That's my personal pet theory not just for the 3E/4E transition, but also the transition from original D&D (with its "Immortals" and "Spheres") to AD&D 1E. There are at least three different multiverses, all still going about their business.

It was commonly hinted at in Planescape that the Neutral Evil fiends, the yugoloths/daemons, were manipulating both the Lawful Evil and Chaotic Evil sides for their own benefit, with a mysterious plot to bring both under their control and thus take over the universe. But I don't think they really do. That would be too lawful. The devils wage the Blood War so they can conquer the demons and take over the multiverse; the demons fight so they can overwhelm the devils and utterly destroy creation. But the yugoloths? They don't care—they don't want to own the multiverse or destroy it, they just want to spread evil however they can. It doesn't matter if the devils or demons win—either way, the yugoloths will gladly ride before their hordes like the Four Horsemen, bringing pain and fear to everything in their path. And that's what makes them the most frightening of the fiends: The devils want to own you, and the demons want to destroy you, but the yugoloths just want to make you suffer.

• This troper would like to believe that they have no plans for the Blood War per se, but were the ones who instigated it in the first place because of course, war causes lots of suffering.
  • And, since yugoloths act as mercenaries some of the time, war is good for business.

Building off the previous WMG, and inspired by Pathfinder. I agree that Charon is the Horseman of Death, but aside from him, the other three horsemen match up to existing yugoloths from Planescape. Anthraxus is Pestilence; Mydianclarus, Lord of the Wasting Tower, is Famine; and the General of Gehenna is War.

In Ullabar's writeup in Monster Manual 3, it's said that he used to be simply a living planet, but was banished to the Far Realm by the gods simply because he was designed by the Primordials, and his his current alignment is because he's on an indiscriminate Roaring Rampage of Revenge. From that, it can be assumed that the other stars were also burned by the gods, and collectively hate them because of it. The reason why the Forgotten War is called that is because the majority of them don't actually hate mortals, and want to avoid collateral damage.

Or Asmodeus is Lolth's spear counterpart. Think about it. Lolth was a goddess, Asmodeus was an angel. Lolth betrayed her patron out of envy, Asmodeus slew his patron out of pride. Lolth failed but was cast into the abyss to become a demon. Asmodeus succeeded, but his plan backfired and he was cast into hell to become a devil. Lolth regained divinity through sheer force of will, Asmodeus claimed divinity through his own cunning and manipulation(or, in forgotten realms, sheer dumb luck and being badass enough to kill a god). Asmodeus is the patron saint of lawful evil, Lolth is the poster girl for chaotic evil. They each have their own chosen people(devils for Asmodeus, drow for Lolth), and in a weird way, the societies of those people are very similar. Also, Lolth maintains a form of seven monstrous spiders and one beautiful drow woman, and it was suggested that Asmodeus's form of the most handsome devil was a projection made by his true form of a giant serpent(though that seems to have been dropped).

It's established in pre-4e sources that Pale Night, among the most horrible of the obyrith lords, is the mother of Graz'zt. However, in 4e, Graz'zt is stated to be an Archdevil who lead an army into the Abyss and eventually went native. Now, some sources suggest that Asmodeus was drawn into the Abyss at some point to mate with Pale Night, so it's possible both storys are true; Graz'zt is the son of Asmodeus and Pale Night, Asmodeus got custody, so to speak, and eventually sent his son to conquer his mother's homeland. However, his innate chaotic nature due to his demonic ancestory caused him to become influenced by the Abyss and embrace his demonic heritage.

The biggest complaint is that 4e is like playing an MMORPG. Those people are thinking in the wrong direction. Powers that even when they miss do damage? 5 alignments? It's rather obvious when you think about it, they're both owned by the same company, 4e is patterned after Magic: the Gathering.

5e will introduce Dominaria as the default setting, and you will get to choose between the colors. On the other hand, by using the colors, that will be vague enough to stop the catterwauling of who's playing their alignments right. Except for black.

Banding will still be overly complicated to be any good to anyone.

• And if there's anything but coincident number, exactly how those alignment do correspond? It's 3.x that was MTG edition, what with meaningless feature-oriented parts like "feats" separate from skills but including fixed skill bonuses. 4e is much further down the drain than that.
  • White: Lawful Good, white is orderly
  • Blue: Neutral. Partway through good and evil.
  • Black: Evil. Self Explanatory
  • Red: Chaotic Evil, due to being the only chaotic alignment left.
  • Green: Good. Process of elimination.
    • None of the Colors in Magic the Gathering have inherent alignments though, there have been a good guys and bad guys from each color.

Rituals work by expending a given amount of gold, astral diamonds, or residuum, causing it to vanish and the magical effects of the ritual to take place. Gold in the D&D world isn't elemental Au, it's an alloy of some other, worthless substance and Residuum. When casting a ritual using gold, the caster alchemically separates the residuum from the base metal and the residuum is expended. Astral diamonds might be a solid, crystallized form of the same substance.

• You don't spend money (gold or astral diamonds) in rituals. You spend ritual components (depending in the ritual type: alchemical substances for arcane rituals, sanctified incense for religious ones, special herbs for nature-related, and something else I can't remember for healing rituals). How much you need is measured in gold pieces, just like everything else you can buy. Residuum is just an universal option, usable for any kind of ritual.

• Was Zarus. The sympathetic potrayal of him is primarily from the Codex of Betrayal, a work written by his last mortal follower — not exactly an unbais source. This ties Asmodeus' origins in line with real world myths regarding Satan, that his fall was due to his refusal to bow before man. Or in this case, his fall was related to his refusal to go out of his way to avoid killing man as he waged war.
  • Zarus has too many ties to Pelor, another deity who isn't dead, so perhaps it is instead Asmodeus who is both Zarus AND Pelor. Zarus was the god of the sun like Pelor, their holy symbols match each other quite well, and they are both known to be worshiped mainly among humans. In that case, Asmodeus has a reason for not throwing a constant hissy-fit at being imprisoned, since he is effectively ruling Hestavar as Pelor.
• Was the DND equivalent of Jehovah. Since Asmodeus is a Satan figure, and Satan rebelled against God, maybe Asmodeus took it one step further and killed God. But an all-powerful and benevolent supreme being wouldn't really work well in a world with as much evil as DND, so then HHW would be a cross between the Biblical god and DND gods, and would be just the most powerful DND god. Also, the Jewish religion did not say there were no other gods, it merely said that Jews should not worship other gods. "Thou shalt have no other gods before me." not "Do not believe in the existence of other gods."
  • The story of He Who Was and Asmodeus could also be interpreted as an alternative history for the Judeochristian God, where Satan challenges Him and wins instead of being cast down.

In every new book about them, at least one major remaining landmark is utterly annihilated for no clear reason.

Even R.A Salvatore, one of the people who apparently hates the new direction of the realms, dropped a Volcano on Neverwinter in the middle of his first Neverwinter book, killing everyone in the city.

This theory is hardly new, but heck, I felt like stating it anyway. The Lady of Pain is the creator and ruler - the overgod - of the entire D&D multiverse. The Phlogiston, the Crystal Spheres, Oerth, Abeir-Toril, Krynn, Athas, Mystara, Eberron, the Planes... she created them all. She's enigmatic; nothing is known about who she is or where she came from. She refuses to tolerate worshippers. She won't let gods in her city - which is located at the centre of the multiverse. Perhaps the reason for this is because if a god usurped her they'd become the new ruler of existence. This, of course, is precisely what Vecna sought to do.

The wall is just there. No god made it. It is a natural part of the cosmology and if the gods were to remove it, the results would be considerably worse. The gods aren't enslaving people by using the wall as a threat to make them worship them; through worship, they are in fact rescuing people from the wall.

In fact they rise from the sea to wipe out all life. Their civilization goes pretty well, until they fall into a race-wide state of Who Wants to Live Forever? and end up seeding the Earth.

Well, considering how this has been the reaction towards every edition change, it stands to reason this will happen again. Sure you can look at every previous edition and notice all the gigantic flaws with balance, lore, and logic, but people like Xe better, so it must be the highest quality one bar none.

She's the only thing in the entire Realm he's scared of, including other dragons and Dungeon Master. And Venger clearly didn't get his looks from his dad. If Skitty and Wailord is possible...

• But we already know from several episodes that Venger is Dungeon Master's son. How can that pairing work?
  • Many D&D dragons can shapeshift. Perhaps Tiamat was hanging around in humanoid form, and she and Dungeon Master fell in love.
    • Perhaps this is why she's so angry all the time.
  • According to the game, Tiamat's human form looks like this◊.
    • That's Takhisis, a goddess from Dragonlance who also takes the 5-headed dragon form. She may or may not be Tiamat; sourcebooks differ on that.
    • The latest edition (from, admittedly, well after the show ended) basically states several times in Draconomicon that Takhisis and Tiamat are one and the same.
  • Alternatively, Dungeon Master is the one who shapeshifted.
    • Or he actually is a dragon, who always shapeshifts into A Form You Are Comfortable With to speak to the kids.

That would explain a lot about Venger.

He assumed his current appearance after the previous Dungeon Master died, perhaps by his hand.

• It is canon that Eric was briefly a DM. If that can happen, then this can happen.

Or some other Evil Overlord or Archmage.

"The Dragon's Graveyard" contains evidence. Look at Dungeon Master's trepidation ("So, it has come to this...") when the kids decide to kill Venger, and his reaction to their sparing him. They narrowly avoided a road that Dungeon Master's last pupil went down.

Think about it. You don't go to some magical other-world when the Roller Coaster you're on crashes unless you die.

Why hell? They're constantly being jerked around by the Dungeon Master. They lack adequate means to protect themselves. And they're constantly teased with the prospect of going home, but never make it — the curse of Tantalus.

• Discredited by Word Of God.

Earth was just a place to protect them until they were old enough to put up a fight, or a place where they went by accident. They won't return because they are needed in the Realm. Yeah, it's like the whole The Twelve Kingdoms storyline; but hey, there's a probability!

• At the end of the unaired Grand Finale, the kids are offered a chance to return home. Whether this discredits the WMG depends on how sincere you think the offer was.

Or at least in some kind of fictional work.

The other kids, DM, and probably Vengar are aware that they're in a fictional TV show; hence, they are particularly brave, given their situation. For example, the kids know they can't die because they're kids.

Vengar is pissed off all the time because he knows he can't win and because the Rule of Drama means he can't die until the show is over.

Eric is the only one who isn't in on the joke, hence his cowardly behavior. Since he doesn't know that the kids can't be in any real danger, he's scared out of his mind and can't understand why the others aren't feeling the same way.

Think about it. He's a teenager, but he's never shown genuine interest in a female character. The one time he's shown really liking someone, it's another boy who's just as snarky as he is.

Chances are, he's got a crush on Hank. He touches Hank a LOT, far more than he does any other character. Unfortunately for him, Hank is straight.

Eric's general unlikable attitude could be a defensive reflex to keep the others from getting too close and figuring out his secret. After all, in The Eighties, tolerance for known gays outside their subculture was even less likely than tolerance for complete jerks.

The only female character he's shown getting along with is Diana, who is also a snarker and who has no interest in him.

• When he gets a marriage proposal from an attractive queen, he shows great interest...in her money.
• Assume Hank and Sheila are meant to be/become an item. Presto meets Varla in the Realm, Diana meets Kosar, and Bobby meets Terry. Who does Eric meet? Lorne.

Okay, so all the kids are good. And it is stated in canon that all the kids are pure of heart. But they can't all be pure good, or there would be considerably less dissension.

It will not work consistently for him until he quits the silly cantrips for good.

Not that that would be hard... But seriously, one common interpretation of his experience in the Celestial Tower is that he was most afraid of being humiliated, ridiculed, and/or outcast. But his place in the Cast Speciation and less-than-trustworthy instincts meant that he went through that sort of thing all the time. His fight-or-flight was always on.

His greatest fear is failure as a leader. His mission is to get everyone home, doing good deeds on the way. Failure Is the Only Option for the main objective, home. The math is clear.

This could've happened after the broadcast finale or during "The Winds of Darkness."

DM has shown himself to be a borderline Trickster Mentor at times; being the hat and screwing around is how he gets his kicks off-duty.

That's a title, not a name, and we have seen "DM" and the hat at the same time. But the hat has the same great power and the same stubborn refusal to help in a straightforward manner.]]

This is how a weapon that is not permanently bonded to its owner can still be an Empathic Weapon. Hank's bow is definitely empathic — there is no other way to get energy arrows to do so much. Presto's Hat is empathic if it isn't sentient, but Presto tends to put more thought into how he wants to word a spell than what he wants it to do.

It also explains why Eric's shield doesn't consistently just dissipate magical/energy attacks, but sometimes transmits physical force towards him when doing so. It's user weakness or user error — maybe he wanted force feedback to be sure the thing was working.

This one is popular with Fan Fic writers. Exactly how he will meet the alignment or religious requirements is left to the guesser.

• He seems to believe in a universe with rules, taking care of the Lawful part, and all the protagonists are supposed to be good, squeaking Eric into Lawful Good. As for a deity, Eric likely wouldn't object to sending a few prayers in the way of anything offering him extra powers to help him get out of the Realms.

He loves magic just that much.

Hopefully, he will be competent before he takes the position.

Perhaps the Hat is an Amplifier Artifact. Perhaps it isn't, but he still has natural abilities that he isn't yet tapping. Either way, the potential might be there.

This is automatically true if "Presto will be DM" is.

• Note: this is canon unless DM lied to Presto during "The Last Illusion."

This idea is popular in fanfics (there may a Word of Dante about it somewhere). It is made possible because this cartoon was made in The Dark Age of Animation.

Reasons:

1. The bow is colored gold. Both it and Presto's eyes were probably supposed to be a light brown, but that color shifted into gold in practice.
2. Unlike ordinary bows, the energy bow does not flex. It does not work like a normal bow. But it's a magical energy bow that shoots flexible hard light! (And yes, it can do More Dakka.) Having it made of metal would both explain why the "bow" is rigid and improve its true functioning. Wood is an insulator, but metal is a conductor — and it would be easier to make that energy cord with a conductor. Gold is not only the right color but also an excellent conductor.

She is the only other being we've seen who appears to be of his species.

She might be Venger's stepmom. Or his real mom, since pure Evil is known to disfigure people.

This is another one from fanfic. There were times when he could do it canonically, but we are speculating here that he could do it even outside those times.

DM may or may not know this.

Venger doesn't destroy the Earth (yet) because he has to take over the Realm first and because opening portals and leaving them not-quite-unattended is a good way to keep tabs on our heroes and their Weapons.

The coloration is similar.

Generally, when this is presumed true, Bobby and Sheila are at most half-siblings.

Hank is unaware of the relation, natch.

And it's a considerably stronger bond than other Weapons have. When it isn't being actively used, it stores the bulk of its magic in its bearer. It draws it back out when it is being used.

Eric has survived a few situations unscathed with an "inactive" shield that mere armor could not have protected him from, including a close brush with a fireball of Venger's in a situation when magic in items was dead but magic in creatures was not. Eric and Venger both became aware of the nature of the bond then.

It would explain why Venger didn't just wait for the kids to go home in "Day of the Dungeonmaster," and why Eric didn't want the power of being a DM. His first thought on becoming DM was panicking about losing the Shield.

If this is true, then it could mean trouble for Eric if he ever does make it home for good. If not before.

The Weapon is still useful — its magic is concentrated enough to bat away other magic — but its primary power is basically to allow itself to be stowed in her fur bikini between uses. If she was carrying a normal pole, it would work just as well for most purposes.

They will become a couple after he gets home. Never mind that he was no more than ten when he met her — it was meant to be.

He turned nine on Earth on the day everyone got trapped in the Realm. The misadventure disrupted the party. Once everyone got the hang of survival and Venger-dodging, and once it became clear they wouldn't get home fast, Hank and Sheila arranged another party.

There were permanent changes made to the timeline — people Venger removed who didn't get put back.

We can safely presume that no changes were made that would significantly change the view from the portal, excepting ones wiping out the physical damage from "Zandora's Box." But it is quite possible that Venger was using the threat of a major change (that is, Nazi + jet plane) to get that crystal destroyed so that there would be no way to fix the minor changes done in the meantime. It's a late episode — there's plenty of time to act on that tendency of the Six to break magical artifacts, especially ones that can be used as portals, even if San Dimas Time was in effect.

These minor changes would have the same general purpose as the major one. While Venger would likely get a kick out of wiping out America, his main priority is those pesky kids with the weapons. It would be much more fun for one or more of them to go home and then find there wasn't a home to go to.

A natural extension to "The Realm Is Hell."

By accepting and using the weapons, the Six are beholden to DM. That they probably couldn't have escaped Tiamat without at least some of those weapons doesn't help.

Since 99% of his magic relies on it alone.

You think it works bad for him now? It would've been even more recalcitrant if he hadn't made the deal, and he isn't dextrous enough for normal creative spellcasting. At least as things stand, the Hat has Mundane Utility as often as not; and at least as it stands, it rarely is a complete dud.

It was before the others knew Eric. Eric was present when Michael died, and is too humiliated or ashamed of the circumstances for his brother to be one of his topics of conversation. It was an unnatural, violent death.

This is, naturally, a Fan Fic theory.

The Weapons of Power are supposed to be carried by those pure in heart. But, for various reasons, and especially early on, he's rarely been better than an Anti-Hero as far as his behavior is concerned.

Nevertheless, the Shield still works for him. True, he didn't keep it at the factory setting, but it works efficiently most of the time.

Therefore, an exemption must have been made for him. Not all from Earth get Weapons of Power — Terri brought her necklace with her.

Perhaps it was Because Destiny Says So — that might be canon. Perhaps the rest of the gang talked DM into it, directly or accidentally....

It is left as an exercise for the Wild Mass Guesser whether the Shield would have to be retrofitted by someone other than him.

On theory that the magic that gave the weapons traveled in a straight line, and that Presto was not the original target. Since the original target was p0robably Eric if it wasn't Presto, this was allowed to stand.

Because ammo for bows is normally isn't built into the weapon, and because he can practically think his energy bolts into existence.

He can think them out of existence — that is, make them disappear without firing them; presumably they go back into the spiritual quiver then.

This would explain why Hank appears to have some slight character disintegration over the course of the series: the very purity of heart that granted him this weapon is what he must sacrifice to use it, and he doesn't always retrieve his arrows. If he were not so pure when he started out, things would have gone much worse by the end of season 2.

Because the decision to shoot the restraints instead of Venger came almost at the last minute.

Also, Hank was having something of a perverse streak, for him, around that time. He had betrayed his own heart during "The Traitor," three episodes prior. He would try to abdicate responsibility for Eric's continued existence and try to kill Venger again around "The Dungeon at the Heart of Dawn."

It was a depressing time to be DM.

This was hidden by incompetence, natch.

Presto restrained Venger. He did it in such a way that, if Hank had done nothing, Venger would have died. So if killing Venger makes you as bad as Venger, Presto would be there.

He had also walked out on his soulmate not long before. Yes, Status Quo Is God, but ouch!

Why, you may ask, when he seems to hate or fear humiliation? Simple: feeling fear and anger is better than feeling nothing when trapped in a crazy world.

Those rare occasions when he has been most calm (as opposed to happy) are ones where he has appeared to abandon his survival instinct. The Shield needs that instinct to function. It clearly does not work on conscious will alone — magic energy works too fast. And it won't work on automatic unless he feels in danger — else, there wouldn't have been shapeshifting incidents.

If he has a secret altruistic instinct, then — well, he's not going to be happy in this crazy world under any normal circumstance, especially if he might have depression. He might as well keep everyone else's negative emotions aimed at him when the forces of Evil aren't active.

This would definitely have been Wild Mass Guessing during the original run of the series. There are signs that some Big Name Fans of this millenium believe variations on it.

Okay. At the end of "Beauty and the Bogbeast," Eric changes back into human form. The accepted explanation then is that The Realm is what Eric hates most.

Later that year, at the end of "The Box," he returns to the Realm more-or-less voluntarily (and almost misses the connection). There are several plausible reasons for this (which probably will be added to this list later), but let's throw this one in anyway...

Eric was restored to human form with a magic necklace after he decided he could not stay on earth as a bogbeast. This item was shown to be used by one other creature — to make an illusionary form. (You think Kawamauga wanted to change back?)

If that change was an illusion, then Eric missed his window for a true change back — DM made it clear there was a short deadline. Still, the nice thing about personal illusions is that you can hide what is causing the personal illusion if you like. We never see that necklace again, and neither does anyone else; Eric is passing for human.

Some kinds of magic lasted longer than others on Earth in "The Box." The Weapons stopped working promptly, but Venger's spells still worked fine. Hank decided to return to the Realm because he was, um, concerned that Venger's magic would never wear off at all; Diana, Sheila, Bobby, and Presto were supporting their leader. We will presume that, for Eric, at least one of the illusion necklace or the biology hidden under it fell somewhere in between. We will also presume that he realized this about the same way Wile E. Coyote realizes he's standing on mid-air. Eric was not trying to rejoin his friends simply because he gave into The Power of Friendship, which was both generally assumed and nobler. Bogbeasts, like unicorns, do not belong to this world. Either Eric's vanity or his survival overruled his staying "home."

This also explains why Eric as DM made it clear that he would not be taking that portal he created and why he couldn't give a reason the others accepted. He was unable to let knowledge be his Shield (book-burning doesn't count); he meant to die with this secret, and do it in the Realm so no one back home would learn it from the body.

At the end of "Citadel of Shadow," Sheila throws the Ring of the Heart and the Ring of the Mind at Venger. He disappears — and is never seen again.

Note: this necessarily means "Requiem" doesn't happen.