WMG / Dungeons & Dragons: Honor Among Thieves

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Pre-Release Theories

The paladin (Rege-Jean Page) turns out to be Evil All Along

The featurette and 2nd trailer already have Xenk overselling himself as that one guy in the campaign. Of course it could be a Red Herring and...

• Averted.

Simon (Justice Smith) turns out to be Evil All Along

• Averted.

Michelle Rodriguez's character DOESN'T die

Partly wrong. Holga dies in the final battle, but Edgin opts to bring her back with the Tablet of Revival he intended to use for his dead wife.

The film will have a Framing Device of an actual D&D game.

Not only would this serve as a convenient Hand Wave for any inconsistencies the movie might have with regards to the game's rules and lore (assuming Rule Zero is in effect), but this could also mean a number of things:

• The Dungeon Master could serve as a narrator, telling the story in second person.
• The Dungeon Master could turn out to be the Man Behind the Man and/or the Final Boss.
• The Dungeon Master will express exasperation that despite the group playing a party of thieves no one brought an actual thief to play.
• The characters in the film will frequently stop to argue with the Dungeon Master. Chances are one of the players could be a Rules Lawyer.
• The main cast will play dual roles as players and as the characters in-game.
  • Or the players are all the surprise cameos like the guys from Critical Role.
• Alternatively, this will be reserved for a post-credits scene (maybe with the players discussing the inconsistencies of the game they just played through).

It would also fit the comments from Chris Pine that the film is similar to The Princess Bride.

• Jossed. The closest thing we get is a cameo from the party from the cartoon series. Other than some slightly meta jokes, there's no indication that the story is a game at all.

Doric is hiding her true form

While technically Tieflings can have humans skin tones in the lore of the game, most people are more familiar with them having bright red or occasionally violet skin. Doric might be using some kind of glamour or object to look more human from a distance (and she could hide her horns and tail if she needed to), but will take on a more traditional Tiefling appearance by the final act.
Related to the above...

Doric turns out to be the MacGuffin Girl

• The fact that she can Wild Shape into something outside of the feature's restrictions may actually be a hint at her real power level.
  • It is possible that she's using Shapechange rather than Wild Shape.

The Movie will get Owlbears re-classified as Beasts in D&D

There's been a fuss over Doric wildshaping into an owlbear despite it being a monstrosity and not a beast; however just as many people have been excited by it and have expressed interest in being able to do that in the game. As such, Wizards of the Coast will change the rules ever-so-slightly so that such a creature becomes officially wildshape-valid.

• Jossed. Wizards of the Coast released official stat blocks for the characters and her being able to change into a Owlbear is officially an exception reserved only to her (and any tabletop groups that Rule Zero the alteration into their own games)

The villains are from The Magocracy of Thay

• The trailer shows what appears to be antagonistic characters that are bald and dressed in red, with one appears as a lich. And given the story takes place in the Forgotten Realms setting, this fits to a T to the description of the infamous Red Wizards of Thay.
  • Confirmed. The Red Wizards, led by Sophina, plot to expand Thay's power to the Sword Coast.

Demogorgon will be the Greater-Scope Villain.

• No, it's Szass Tam.

A member of Critical Role will cameo

• The party will try to hire another adventurer to help them. During a Terrible Interviewees Montage, one of the characters from Critical Role will appear and back out when they learn the job takes place on Thursday night. They have other commitments.
  • In lieu of the actual guys from Critical Role it could instead be other actors as blatant Captain Ersatz characters, like say Jason Momoa as Grog. Or at least a bootleg Kratos that turns out to be more like Grog.
  • Alternately, they'll show up in a mid-credits scene and be disappointed that they missed everything.
  • Jossed by Matt Mercer himself on Twitter shortly before release, despite some media outlets reporting to the contrary: https://twitter.com/matthewmercer/status/1639735719496384513?s=46&t=8AzbAdHSzabKhwaXfJpQJQ

Other possible cameos:

• Remake Cameo by Jeremy Irons and/or Bruce Payne
• Michael Winslow as Edgin's bard master, so we can end up hearing this.
• Big name fans of D&D such as Stephen Colbert, Vin Diesel, Judi Dench, or Joe Manganiello.
• The McElroy Brothers (and Clint)

Instead of more Led Zeppelin, the BGM is composed of medieval "bardcore" versions of more recent tunes

• Jossed. The actual diegetic music in the film are all newly-composed pieces in the style of medieval ballads and songs.

Post-Release Theories

Edgin isn't a Bard at all; he's a Rogue.

While Edgin mostly fits the classic role of Bard - musically talented, charismatic, the party's "Face" - there is one glaring discrepancy: a total lack of magic. It's perfectly possible that Edgin is in fact a Rogue, probably in a support-oriented subclass such as a Mastermind. The class certainly fits Ed's style: staying out of combat but shouting encouragement to allies (the Master of Tactics feature, which allows using the Help action at a distance), occasionally performing a Sneak Attack against a distracted enemy, and of course nicking the occasional bit of loot when nobody's watching.

• Most likely Jossed, as his official statblock from Wizards of the Coast does explicitly claim him as a bard and does give him bard spells.
• Plus there are several moment that could be him casting magic but just not using flashy stuff.

Xenk is some variant of Aasimar.

Perhaps, after the Thayan coup, an angelic spirit of sorts descended to bless/empower young Xenk. It would explain his longevity, his implied ability to see in the dark as a human, and perhaps even his rather... stilted way of dealing with other people and especially their colloquialisms.

Unbeknownst to her, Doric was a product of infidelity.

On paper both of her parents were human, but in actuality one of them had an affair with an infernal and Doric was the result. This would provide a pretty solid explanation for why she was abandoned; either without the faithful parent knowing she existed, or after the parents split up following the reveal.

• Tieflings are explicitly NOT half-demon/devil. It's more like your great-great-grandparent was one, and you just got the family traits lining up.

Forge was to be executed for his crimes, but Edgin appealed against it due to their prior friendship

Edgin made Sofina put them into the Highsun Games with magic.

Her deciding to throw them into the games doesn't make a hell of a lot of sense. Even if she wanted them as undead slaves out of irritation she could achieve that with a lot less risk by just keeping them tied up somewhere in the arena. But Edgin cast Suggestion on her while speaking to Forge in a last ditch effort that worked. It does track; it's a Bard spell and can target anyone within range who can hear you, not necessarily the person you're speaking to.

"This is all a game" WM Gs

Out of universe, Xenk is a DM controlled NPC

Hence his overly perfect nature, guiding the party through a puzzle and then being disappointed when they come up with a different solution, showing up to capture the villain, and his Leaning on the Fourth Wall mindless walk out of the story.

Alternatively, out of universe Xenk is a someone's little sibling or kid joining up for a session

He's a very basic archetype (noble, Lawful Good paladin), very important once and then disappears, gets his own fight scene, and he's kind of overpowered. And yet none of the other characters seem to dislike him besides Edgin, who has a character reason to and eventually warms to him. While an overpowered player would probably annoy other players, even if that player was a guest, they'd be more forgiving and willing to play along if it was a kid's first tabletop game and they wanted him to have fun.

Forge's player had a falling out with the rest of the party

It's possible that the flashbacks to Edgin's life were the first campaign these players tried, but that fell apart after Forge's player made a series of selfish choices and eventually got too toxic for the players to handle. After some time to collect themselves, the players decided to try the campaign again - hence the time skip, and replacing Forge with Doric and her player. Then the DM decided that to help give the players closure, they'd turn the former player character Forge into an NPC so that they could take him out.

• Alternate theory: Forge's player got bored of being him and decided to create Doric for the new campaign. he may even be roleplaying Forge's moments when necessary.
• Yet another theory: Doric's player rolled her after coming out as trans (since tiefling druid is a very stereotypically transfemme species/class choice, and an obnoxious bard is a very "egg" character).

Forge is the DM's former PC before they assumed their current duties.

And the backstory Edgin was telling the judges at the beginning was the previous DM's campaign. For whatever reason, the original DM had to stop running the campaign after the heist, leaving the party on a cliffhanger. Forge's player stepped up to fill the gap and decided to continue the story. The players probably assumed Forge was a cameo or a future patron; Forge's alliance with the campaign's Big Bad and betrayal of the party was an unexpected plot twist and a bit of Enforced Method Acting on the DM's part to draw out the party's outrage.

The D&D campaign which the movie is based upon is a deliberately PG-rated/kid-friendly one.

Although a moderate amount of profanity (mostly "shit") does get said, nothing overtly raunchy or prejudiced is ever spoken. The hobgoblin prisoner's "crude" lines to Holga are actually quite bland, and the only scenes of a couple in bed together turn out to be them hiding under the covers from a dragonfly. There are very few on-screen deaths, the only grisly ones being flashbacks, background events, and/or of a highly fantastical nature. Undead are either very human-looking or played for comedy. Even Doric's account of her parentage implies that tieflings in this particular campaign are just an accident of birth rather than the product of mortals mating with or associating with fiends. (Indeed, there's no reference to D&D's fiends at all, aside from the Norwegian translation's replacement for a joke.) Plus, the central character's objective is to save his little girl and make up for having disappointed her as a father. In general, the impression is that, if this story is the recounting of an actual game, it's one where at least some of the players are minors and the DM has toned down the mature subject matter in favor of a family-friendly story.

• FWIW, this seems to conflate tieflings with half-orcs. The standard lore for tieflings is that they tend to pop up in bloodlines at random (or True Breeding Hybrids), and come along from contracts (or even just being a little too close to explanatory activity of the fiendish kind).
  • Either way, the film completely omits any fiendish connection.

Hugh Grant is the DM

Based on the fact that we can see what Forge, Solfina, and Kira are all doing when none of the party members are present and the fact it is Forge narrating what happened once he was imprisoned (and thus unlikely to be regularly updated on the news), it is Hugh Grant who is the DM for this campaign. Forge's monologue at the end to the Lord's Alliance council was just the DM's wrap up of the campaign to his players told to us through an important NPC (Forge) which the movie gave the DM's face since he is the instigator of the whole heist which takes up the majority of the movie's run time, Solfina only coming in as a final boss at the very end.

Themberchaud's random attack was a player's cat jumping onto the table.

There's very little foreshadowing for his appearance but based on the improvisational aspect of D&D combined with Themberchaud's movement resembling that of a particularly chonky cat, the DM decided to go with Rule of Funny for the hell of it.

Sequel Theories

They address the jailbreak in the beginning of the first movie

Basically they weigh against all the events of the first movie and decide that our heroes should be sentenced to community service, forming an excuse for their new quest. It's revealed later that the length of community service could have been a fraction of the final duration, but Jarnathan, whose testimony would have helped that, was late again.

In the sequel, Kira will fully join the party as a rogue.

It's an obvious hole in the party's dynamic, and it would suit her predilection for sneaking around.

The party from Dungeons & Dragons (2000) will cameo in a sequel

Much like the party from the animated series. However, they will get killed onscreen as a Take That! towards the movie.

• Similarity, we may also get a cameo from the Mystara 1996 game party, and they won’t die on-screen due to the popularity of the game. It is also possible the 1983 party will later show up in a bigger role.
• How about one for the 3e/3.5 era's iconic characters, i.e. Tordek, Krusk, Mialee, Lidda, Jozan, etc?
• Or the members of The Order of the Stick?
  • Not likely, as Hasbro doesn't have the rights to them.

Jeremy Irons will appear for a second chance at a DnD film

Doric was left under-developed as sequel bait

Her backstory and romance were left unexplored in case the film turned out to get a sequel, that way they'd have something for them to explore that the audience was already somewhat invested in. They could even use an entirely new cast of characters and use her to tie the groups together naratively.

Forge will redeem himself and rejoin the party

Forge will escape and be a villain again

The sequel will involve the same actors playing completely different characters.

• Who's to say that the next movie is following the same campaign?