The Fourth Edition setting will be destroyed by the Undead.
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.
- Screw that. It is Coldharbour from The Elder Scrolls.
- 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 the 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 spelljammers 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 the 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.
- Even before Birth Right, there was a similar realm called Limbo (not the Great Wheel plane) described in Bruce Heard's series of Princess Ark articles about the Basic/Expert/etc D&D system's Mystara. Really, it's a very old concept that 4E integrated from many, many sources, most of which predate gaming itself.
- 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.
The Planescape cosmology demands the existence of the Ordial Plane.
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...
- 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.
- Unless it does follow the Rule of Three, thereby following the rules of the universe, thus breaking its own rules and thereby conserving its rule of breaking rules by simultaneously breaking and not breaking rules and Oh no, I've gone cross-eyed.
The Primordials of Fourth Edition aren't as big dicks as they made out to be.
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.
- I assume you mean the Jotun. In that case, Western people get that one rather wrong. The conflict bewteen them and the Norse Gods is order/culture vs chaos/nature, Jotuns being the second one.
- 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 not a god.
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.
- Surprised nobody mentioned the (possibly retconned, but easy enough to re-implement) old bit of lore from 2e's Guide to Hell, which was implied to still be canon by the time of early 3e (in 3.0 Manual of the Planes), where Asmodeus is actually an advanced form of projection by Ahriman, the evil one of two unimaginably massive World Serpents whose coils encircled the multiverse at its dawn and who fought each other over their differences in morals; after crashing down into Baator following the fight, which gave the Nine Hells their current shape/structure, it's been licking its wounds at the bottom of the Ninth, Nessus, plotting its return. Other TVTropes pages mention this, and it could neatly explain pretty much everything mentioned here, as it would mean he's basically been biding his time and playing everyone else for chumps since forever.
- 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
- Nah, it just didn't like the new cosmology and bailed early. It's hanging around with Autochthon these days.
- 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.
Iron Heart Surge is a manifestation of Spiral Energy.
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!
In past editions, the reason why the devils and demons had such huge numbers advantages compared to the good outsiders was because of Always Chaotic Evil races
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.
The Wall of The Faithless prevents Asmodeus from being restored
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.
The Golothoma has a symbiotic link to the Vashta Nerada
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 Multiversal transition to Fourth Edition was caused by...
- ... 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.
The yugoloths have no plan for the Blood War.
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.
Each of the known yugoloth lords from Planescape correspond to one of the Four Horsemen.
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. Dragonlance is getting a Fourth Edition book
The Forgotten War Was Instigated By The Gods
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. Lolth is Asmodeus' Distaff Counterpart
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). Graz'zt is Asmodeus' son.
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. Rokugan is accessible in the D&D multiverse, but will not appear officially due to being Exiled from Continuity.
While third edition featured Rokugan as a campaign setting, the rights are owned by Fantasy Flight Games, so it will not appear again in modern editions. But since it can still be accessed with knowledge of planar travel, it is still related to the D&D cosmology. They didn't pattern 4e after MMORPGs
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.
- Reading even a basic correspondence to the colour pie from Magic is a good example of not bothering to do the research on how the colours work in Magic the Gathering. Take Scars of Mirrodin: The primary big bads are blue and white, their Red counterpart is aiding the heroes, the green is so obsessed with destroying order and institutions that they can barely work with him and the black is almost a basket case. Go back to Zendikar and the big bad is best described as unaligned. Innistrad would justify this interpretation, but the truth is that the M:tG design team have always had a better grasp on morality and mechanics interplay. Compare their colour system to the Book of Exalted Deeds & Book of Vile Darkness.
- The D&D 5th edition supplements Plane Shift: Innistrad and Plane Shift: Zendikar enable campaigns to be set in the Magic: The Gathering multiverse. More crossovers will come, until both settings appear to be in the same multiverse.
Residuum in 4e is the Philosopher's Stone
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.
He Who Was . . .
- 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 unbiased 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.
Wizards of the Coast is actively working to kill off the Forgotten Realms
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.
The Lady of Pain is the Creator of the Dungeons & Dragons multiverse
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 Lady of Pain is Lorraine Williams
Tyrannical, arbitary, hates the gods (the creators of games), and prefers followers who are literally incapable of talking back (the dabus). In the end, one of the creators' pet characters attempts to overthrow her, and ends up "fired."- Confirmed, amazingly enough.Monte Cook: What most people don’t know is that much of Sigil was Zeb’s metaphorical analog for TSR itself. I mean, it was literally run by the Lady of Pain, whose very gaze could kill you (or your product). So behind the scenes, the setting had a very different meaning for everyone there.
The Wall of the Faithless is not evil
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.The Far Realm is the Warp from Warhammer 40,000.
The Aboleth win.
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.- In the process of conquering the world they undergo a drastic change which results in them becoming obsessed with conquering everything in existence. When there's nothing left to conquer and everything is destroyed by the constant and multiplanar war their blood lust drives them to seek out the one place they know still lies something to rule: the past. Their prolonged war, however, has reduced them to an almost alien form when compared to their original one: that of slugs which must be implanted into a living being and consume their brain. The Aboleths, in winning control of the Universe in the future become what they fear in the present. Illithids.
Fifth edition will dumb down the much beloved fourth edition, which was perfect in all its forms.
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. Mayaheine is supposed to literally be Joan of Arc.
Lessee. She's described as having auburn hair and blue eyes, which fits a lot of popular depictions of Joan. She was a "paladin of Pelor from another world", which makes a lot of Woolseyism-style sense when you consider Pelor's faith is often depicted in canon as being a lot like Catholicism with the serial numbers filed off, and would be easier to explain to the locals that way. She was brought to Oerth specifically for her martial and tactical prowess, which Joan obviously has. And her domains of Protection, Justice, and Valor (and her motto of "Fortitude within and valor without") certainly fit with Joan's own depictions. And it makes a certain amount of sense that a god of the sun would save a holy woman from burning. Asmodeus caused the Spellplague.
Asmodeus is something of an expert when it comes to deicide. He manipulated Cyric and Shar into killing Mystra(not particularly difficult given their hatred of her), so that in the aftermath he could kill Azuth and achieve apotheosis from his divine essence. 5th Edition Forgotten Realms will reveal that the 4th Edition version of the setting was All Just a Dream.
Elminster will wake up, run to the bathroom, and discover Mystra in the shower, alive and well. Some outside force is keeping humans weak
- In the distant past some powerful force saw what humanity could do to the world and decided to use its power to weaken them, shorter life spans, no magical or physical prowess. They though this would be enough, they were wrong. Even in their weakened state humanity has proven a force to reckon with, many have began unlocking their hidden power, becoming adventures. Breeding with other races also reduces the effect of this weakening magic. The most terrifying possibility is that one day this weakening magic will fail, and on that day you better pray that the humans call you 'friend'.
Neolithids are the natural state of Illithids
rather Illithids are an unatural hybrid of Neolithid and humanoid created by some force(possibly the aboleths) which would eventually become the elder brains to be an elite servant race. they are supposedly tadpoles that don't get to mature properly do to lacking a host, yet they are more powerful and possess more abilities then the standard Illithid(and are even more powerful then the Ulitharid) which if they were a stunted malformed offshoot should logically be the other way around, the elder brains also do not seem to be a natural part of an Mindflayer colony, a colony organism, especially a colony reinforced with a hivemind, should have no issue giving its life for the hive, as we see with basically every insect based race, yet the elderbrains must maintain a lie about Mindflayers joining them in death for fear of a rebellion, they also must actively cull tadpoles who dont find a host, when normally a parasite who failed to get a host would simply die on its own Elves are a dying race, because they have a massive inbreeding problem
An elf matures at same rate as a human, but can live up to 750 years. This means that an elf can be a progenitor of great many elf generations. Then, when those elves seek mates, the chances of breeding with another elf sharing the same parent/grandparent/great grandparent is very high. Compounding that problem generation after generation, after a few thousand years it might be difficult to find a two elves who are not siblings/cousins/aunts/uncles some way or another.Think Elves in Forgotten realms, whom are only as common as Half-elves. This indicates that elves have trouble breeding amongst themselves, so they have relations with humans instead. Elf communities are few and far between. It might be that the whole elf species is just an extended family, like the european royal families on Earth. Elf marrying practices might involve thorough genealogy studies to find out whether the couple is compatible or too close to each other to be allowed to breed and bring down elf species even further.