Archives of Candlekeep: Totally Tortley
This article was first broadcast in Episode Two Hundred and Thirty Nine on 10th May, 2023. Note: This article was adapted from an episode script, and so there may be parts that don’t flow well when read, because they were initially designed for broadcast. Tortles have a surprisingly long history with D&D. But like Shifters and Warforged, their origins are linked to alternate settings and they’re usually brought into mainstream D&D during a second or third “wave” of content additions. Quick refresher for those who forgot their D&D real-world history. During the first and second edition of D&D, there was the main publication out of TSR, officially called “Advanced Dungeons and Dragons.” The reason that was emphasized was to separate it from “Basic Dungeons and Dragons.” Basic was a parallel publication that used most of the same bones of D&D, but the details differed. The two most obvious differences were…
Archives of Candlekeep: Oh Bahamut, He Comin’!
This article was first broadcast in Episode Two Hundred and Thirty Eight on 26th April, 2023. Note: This article was adapted from an episode script, and so there may be parts that don’t flow well when read, because they were initially designed for broadcast. As we’ve mentioned before, unlike with a lot of modern fantasy media like Harry Potter and Game of Thrones, Dragons in D&D are fully sapient, thinking beings. That has given rise to several dragons who made names for themselves for various reasons. Icingdeath, which is the name I’m using because his real name sounds like someone sneezing into a kazoo, is a dragon made famous from the Drizz’t novels. Ashardalon [ash-AR-dah-lawn] is a red dragon with a terrifying multiversal reputation. Silvara is a Silver dragon whose life and fate were tied in directly to the War of the Lance and the heroes from Dragonlance. Themberchaud is…
Archives of Candlekeep: Don’t Feed the Trolls
This article was first broadcast in Episode Two Hundred and Thirty Seven on 22nd March, 2023. Note: This article was adapted from an episode script, and so there may be parts that don’t flow well when read, because they were initially designed for broadcast. In D&D, trolls are something of an unsung victory of the brand. In almost all modern fantasy series, trolls have mostly the same appearance and behavior; they’re larger than humans, usually by several feet; they have wiry bodies covered in skin that looks diseased, loose, oddly colored, or all of the above; they aren’t that intelligent; and they try to eat anything and anyone they come across. Almost no one thinks D&D invented trolls, and technically they are correct. Trolls exist in multiple mythologies and myths throughout history. However, D&D’s particular brand of troll didn’t come directly from any myth. Most people’s next thought would be…
Archives of Candlekeep: Lich? Please!
Liches, ironically, have been around for a very long time in D&D. It’s ironic because that’s the whole point; liches are very powerful magic users who are usually after immortality. But they don’t want to sell their soul to anyone except themselves to get that never ending existence. They also tend to cause trouble for everyone else around as a side effect of that ambition. When we they’ve been around for a very long time, we’re not kidding; there are few creatures that have been written down in the rules longer. The first lich creature was described in the Greyhawk supplement for Original D&D, put out in 1975. They were only described as “the skeletal monsters are of magical origin, each Lich formerly being a very powerful Magic-User or Magic-User/Cleric in life, and now alive only by means of great spells and will, because of being in some way disturbed.”…
Archives of Candlekeep: Thessalthings and How to Make Them
Thessalar is a minor figure in the grand scheme of things, but his popularity got a slight boost a few years ago, albeit indirectly. A huge, amorphous monster appeared toward the end of Stranger Things season 1 and in the trailers for Stranger Things season 2. Given how much Stranger Things leaned on D&D for story elements and naming conventions, fans of the series and D&D immediately began to guess what the monster was or would be called. With no clues from the cast or writers, the internet as a whole eventually went with “thessalhydra.” And then a lot of people only familiar with 4th and 5th edition D&D went, “a what”? By the way, the creature from stranger things was eventually dubbed a mind flayer, but that’s not important right now. The thessalhyrda is a monster out of 1st edition. It originally appeared in the second monster manual. Like…
Archives of Candlekeep: Graz’zt
Like so many things, Graz’zt is fine as long as you’re a man. Graz’zt is a figure that can be very problematic in D&D. Certainly using him in a campaign in any way that’s true to lore and doesn’t just have him as an adversary to fight can raise some eyebrows or cause a lot of uncomfortable squirming in players. The demon lord is not new, but he wasn’t there from the very beginning like Orcus or Demogorgon. Graz’zt was, however, a Gary Gygax original for better or worse. Gygax also said in an interview that “Graz-it” was the pronunciation, so sorry to everyone who liked the “grazt” version. The demon lord first appeared in a module for first edition D&D called “The lost Caverns of Tsojconth [SOJ-kanth]”. It was labeled as adventure “S4” and published in 1982, though the published version was a clean up and rewrite of Gygax’s…
Archives of Candlekeep: Gnolls and Yeenoghu
This article was first broadcast in Episode Two Hundred and Twenty Nine on 16th November 2022. Note: This article was adapted from an episode script, and so there may be parts that don’t flow well when read, because they were initially designed for broadcast. People always point out that generalizing the behavior of a species based on the most frequently encountered groups or even the majority isn’t fair. Drizzt proved that not all Drow are Lolth-worshiping, murderously conniving slavers, Orc society is much more complex than them just being aggressive raiders that want to kill all the other races and conquer the world, and not all Kobolds are mindless dragon sycophants. On the other hand, there are some species where trying to find the diamond in the rough is a very long, fruitless dig. Locating a sympathetic vegetarian Mind Flayer is going to be a really difficult scavenger hunt; benevolent…
Archives of Candlekeep: Drizzt
This article was first broadcast in Episode Two Hundred and Twenty Seven on 19th October 2022. Note: This article was adapted from an episode script, and so there may be parts that don’t flow well when read, because they were initially designed for broadcast. Drizzt Do’Urden is one of the most famous fictional characters to come out of D&D. Some people say he is the 100% most famous character, Stranger Things notwithstanding. He’s the rebel drow that forsook his heritage, made his way on the surface, and established a long-running legacy with his swords, panther, and companions. There is debate about some things, but a lot of people consider him to be the main reason the Forgotten Realms rose to as much prominence as it did. Some say he is also the reason Rangers, drow playable races, and animal companions are always the focus of a lot of fan attention in…
Archives of Candlekeep: Lord Soth (aka Strahd Lite)
This article was first broadcast in Episode Two Hundred and Twenty Six on 5th October 2022. Note: This article was adapted from an episode script, and so there may be parts that don’t flow well when read, because they were initially designed for broadcast. Lord Soth, in Dragonlance, fills in much the same niche as Wormtongue from Lord of the Rings or The Mountain from Game of Thrones; he is a secondary antagonist in most of his appearances, almost always working at the behest of someone else, and their backstory is…fraught. Soth’s first appearance in real life chronology was in the War of the Lance trilogy (The original three). He lived through that conflict (sort of…we’ll get to that in a bit), and became another significant pain for the heroes in the so-called “twins trilogy” that focuses on Raistlin and Caramon…and the short one whose name starts with a “T”.…
Archives of Candlekeep: Fire, Water, Earth and Air – Genasi
This article was first broadcast in Episode Two Hundred and Twenty Three on 31st August 2022. Note: This article was adapted from an episode script, and so there may be parts that don’t flow well when read, because they were initially designed for broadcast. Genasi are one of the more esoteric playable races in D&D, which is saying something given that giant frog and tortoise people are options. Like a number of the more unusual racial options in D&D, the genasi came about once planar travel, and Planescape in particular, became a major fixture of D&D. Possibly due to the gender makeup of TSR in the late 80s and early 90s, it was apparently assumed that if people were able to find exotic beings from other planes, one of the first orders of business would be to…how shall I put this…test biological compatibility. In 2nd edition, if a human got…