Dammodar's infamous blue lips are a result of the drug Sannish.
Sannish stains the lips blue. In the sequel he mentions problems with controlling his urges, at the time a reference to his undead form of sustenance but possibly also a problem that he's been having since he was alive. This would also explain how Profion controlled him, since it's made by distilling wolf's milk, something Profion could harvest via summon monster spells. Sannish itself is essentially magical opium, making you immune to pain but causing wisdom damage, meaning that the fighter Damodar would become more easily addicted since his will save is already so low and could only get lower from there. In Dungeons & Dragons: Wrath of the Dragon God his lips are normal, since he was undead, which are immune to negative drug effects. The Film is literally adapted from the game that the cast played before shooting.
Think about it. What would you do if you had to write the script for a film based on the world's most famous role-playing game? No matter what you write, it will end up being vastly different to at least somebody's idea of the typical campaign, so what do you include and what can you leave out? At the same time, you have a group of people who are about to try acting in this film, who need to know what their characters are like so that they can act their parts convincingly. What better way to help them play their role than with a role playing game that their characters are in? And if you're going to play a Dungeons & Dragons campaign before filming anyway, coming up with all that plot, why not use it? The film isn't really happening.
It's just a group of friends actually playing D&D. The discrepancies between the events and the source material can be explained as the group altering the game to suit their interests or to keep certain member from exploiting its flaws and breaking the game or they might instead be doing JUST that to screw with a particularly antagonistic Dungeon Master). The characters are actually being played by a group of friends. Snails seems dumb and out-of-place because it's his first time and really doesn't how to play. Profion is so deliciously hammy because that's how the DM portrays him. The characters seemingly dissolving into light/teleporting at the end is just them getting up from the table after finishing the game or just taking a short break. The Film is an artistic documentation of the most expensive LARP in human history.
- 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...
The Book of Vile Darkness is actually a prequel to Dungeons & Dragons and Wrath of the Dragon God
The Beholder is a special type of Beholder native to Izmer
The Izmer Beholder acts differently than the standard Beholder, favoring brief cameos rather than combat.Elwood is projecting his own disdain of horses.
When Elwood states dwarves do not like riding horses, he is not speaking for all dwarves. He is applying his own personal dislike of horses to all dwarves. Izmer is based on Mystara's Alphatia Empire
The political situation in Izmer is based on the Alphatia Empire in Mystara. "Bar Fight!" is a custom for helping adventurers escape tavern ambushes
Everyone does seem to quickly get into it without any real motivation. It could just be a customary thing to create a distraction on demand for their fellow patrons trying to get out of a tight fix by forcing their pursuers to do a Mobstacle Course to chase after their target. Presumably they go along with it because they might need the same favor later. It wouldn't even need everyone to be in on the idea for it to work. With enough critical mass of active participants, bystanders would add to the confusion by fighting back or trying to get out of the way.