Unpacking the Vast Complexities of the D&D Multiverse

While I suppose at this point I've been DMing for nearly two years, I still think of myself, as someone who got into the game in his 30s, as a neophyte to Dungeons and Dragons.

I'm also a fantasy writer, and so naturally, when I got into D&D, I took the opportunity to create a new world for my players to inhabit.

But one of the oddities of D&D is that, while they encourage the creation of new worlds (such as Matthew Mercer's Exandria setting for the Critical Role games,) the Multiverse seems to be fairly consistent. The Dungeon Master's Guide outlines the inner planes - such as the Feywild and Shadowfell, which are sort of "just outside reality," and then the Elemental Planes - followed by the Outer Planes, which seem much more directly tied to the alignment system.

Whereas some established, commercial IPs are complex but not so complex that I couldn't match their complexities (I'd argue my Sarkon setting is roughly as complex as the Warcraft setting, though that's one that keeps getting fleshed out with each WoW expansion, meaning I'll have to keep working to keep pace with it,) the D&D Multiverse is utterly immense.

Essentially, it seems that each setting, with exceptions for plane-hopping "settings" like Planescape or Spelljammer, is really just one of the worlds within the Prime Material Plane. What this means is that there's actually a lot of crossover between them.

Typically, humans have different gods to worship in each of the material plane worlds, but the other races tend to have the same ones. And entities from the other planes, like the Raven Queen of the Shadowfell or Asmodeus with his infernal hierarchy from the Nine Hells, play roles in each of these worlds.

This presents a bit of a conundrum for me and my setting. I'm torn between wanting to connect it with the greater D&D multiverse (which, for example, might make it more welcoming for veteran players) and creating my own thing. (I'm reminded of an Arrested Development line where GOB, the only slightly successful stage magician, buys a katana that apparently has a complex mythology and he interrupts the guy telling him saying "Yeah, I make up my own patter. Just ring it up with the dong tea.")

The thing is, I think that tons of writers have been adding to D&D lore since before I was born, so there's a ton of stuff that's rather firmly established on which I only have a partial grasp.

Currently, my thinking is that the multiverse of my own setting is actually outside of the main multiverse, in a kind of pocket of reality across the Far Plane. It's a setting with a very important and strong cosmic horror element, but I figure it's connected enough that faint whispers of existing D&D stuff could get in.

But one of the odd consequences of making my own stuff up is that sometimes I think I've come up with a clever take on an existing element only to discover that someone else has already had that idea.

Take, for example, my version of the Drow (Dark Elves.)

In my setting, no humanoid race is inherently evil - Half-Orcs, for example, are actually just Orcs but given that name because Orcs are so associated with barbarism and thus the other races feel that referring to them by the actual name of their race would be an insult.

Anyway, the Drow are an ostracized minority within the general culture, most forced to live in isolated villages in the more dreary and dangerous parts of the Empire. However, a large faction of them were evangelized by strange bird-like emissaries of an entity called the Dire King, who rules the Shadowlands - Sarkon's equivalent of the Shadowfell. This faction, who call themselves the Dire Elves, are far more vicious and cruel, like the Lolth-worshipping Drow of the main setting.

However, clever as I thought I was being, I then learned about the Shadar-Kai - a group of, yes, Drow, who, rather than worshipping Lolth, have become worshippers of the Raven Queen, who, you know, rules the Shadowfell.

Not only that, but my bird-like creatures, inspired mainly by the Taheen from Stephen King's Dark Tower series (which, if I had to name one top influence on me, that's the one) as well as the "Winged Servants" of the "Distant Prince" from the Welcome to Night Vale podcast, actually bear a resemblance to the "Nagpa," a somewhat obscure, but apparently about to appear in Mordenkainen's Tome of Foes, bird-headed group of Shadowfell creatures (themselves partially inspired by the Skekses from The Dark Crystal.)

There's a granularity to D&D's established stuff that is really intimidating.

Take, for example, the fact that there are both Demons and Devils. In my setting, I've taken inspiration from Warcraft (or at least my interpretation of Warcraft lore) and have three major, mostly independent major evils - the Lovecraftian Great Others, the ominous and corrupting Primal Shadow, and the undead legions of Gorendan, the God of Death (the latter being complicated by the fact that Gorendan himself might not be strictly evil anymore, even if his legions still are.)

So the Great Others have a pretty good spread of Aberration--type monsters to associate with (I've even got a history for Ilithids/Mind Flayers that suggests they were once benevolent before the influence of the Great Others corrupted them.) Gorendan and his lieutenant Absolon are a great source for all kinds of Undead monsters, but also work pretty well to introduce Devils - Absolon is essentially an Undead Angel, and in my setting, there are tons of fiendish creatures who serve a similar role that the Angels do to the benevolent gods, only they serve Gorendan.

The Primal Shadow is somewhat more vague, but the Dire King serves as a kind of tangible manifestation of its power. All the nasty Shadowfell stuff could come through this branch, but again, it's complicated. In the standard D&D stuff, the Shadowfell is actually home to much of the undead/necromantic magic. My Shadowlands are really more equivalent to the Dark World from A Link to the Past.

The thing is, I think that if you look at D&D's official, established canon, there's way more than just that. I mentioned Devils and Demons, but those are only the denizens of the Nine Hells of Baator (the Lawful Evil plane) and the Abyss (the Chaotic Evil plane.) But that's only two of seven evil-aligned planes, not to mention the Shadowfell or any of the other places where there's nasty evil stuff, like the City of Brass in the Fire Plane or the bad parts of the Feywild.

My problem here is that there's a certain hubris I possess that says "ok, you've (and by you I mean countless different writers all working at different times) had 40 years to establish this enormously complex canon. I must match it!" I'm not generally a competitive person - I don't even enjoy player-versus-player video games much. But I guess I found a worthy opponent and a challenge I find compelling.

May Dor, Sarass, Byzerak, Yad and all His saints have mercy on this foolish soul.

1/4: Heritage Armor of the Lightforged Achieved!

Man, the Broken Isles quests fly by.

The only hiccup in leveling through the Broken Isles is that, due to the fact that you can start at level 98 (and basically give a big middle finger to Alt-Nagrand,) if you really only focus on the main quests - getting the loremaster achievements in each zone but not sticking around for side-quests like the Nesingwary quests in Highmountain - you'll need a bit extra to get you to 110. However, Legion invasions provide a pretty big bump to XP - you get temporary authorization for world quests when there's an invasion in the zone.

Anyway, leveling up an additional Paladin was perhaps less novel than other classes might be. As a Protection main, I have plenty of opportunities to go Ret while doing world quests and the like, so the rhythm of Retribution, especially before getting Legendaries and the like, was not unfamiliar.

I suspect that my next Allied Race character expected to hit the cap (he's currently 79, nearly done with his time in Northrend,) the Void Elf Rogue, might be fairly different, as I've really stuck mostly to Subtlety for my main Rogue, and with this guy I'm thinking I'll focus on Assassination (Outlaw's tempting, but I already have a Worgen Rogue who's full pirate.)

The Allied Races actually feel a lot like seasonal characters for Diablo III - you're not necessarily going to make them your new main (though I imagine many will,) but it's a fun little challenge that reminds you what it's like to be low-level.

It's an excellent showcase for the new level scaling, and I think they've struck a decent balance of how quickly you get your abilities. Most specs feel pretty complete in the 40s or 50s (Rogues could probably get their AoE tools a bit earlier,) and while the rate of getting new abilities drops off in the higher levels (I think you get a full spellbook at 80 on every class, leaving only talents and eventually artifact abilities at higher levels to look forward to.)

In terms of the specific Lightforged Armor - I mostly like it, though I hate that the helmet (more of a collar really) cuts off the magnificent beard my character has (given that that beard is like 40% why I created that character, I've got his helmet turned off.) I also feel like it's a little too red in places - I get that the Lightforged Draenei don't have the blue/purple aesthetic of standard Draenei, but I'd rather have Gold, White, and Grey as their colors.

I do hope we get some NPCs to flesh out the relationships between the established races and the allied ones a bit more. I'd love them to emphasize the difference between the Lightforged Draenei and original flavor ones - my sense is that Lightforged are very martial and stubborn, more Lawful than Good, while the standard Draenei have a more nuanced view of the Light (much as Velen has demonstrated) and an overall warmer (and somehow also chiller) vibe, being a long-established rag-tag group of refugees instead of a cohesive military unit.

Zandalari Druids Getting Reptilian Beast/Moonkin Forms

Trolls have been able to play as Druids ever since Cataclysm, and one of the unique features that they got was that their flight form was a bat, rather than a bird - we knew from quests way back in Zangarmarsh that the Darkspear consider bird spirits to be unworthy (not sure how 110 Troll Druids feel about the Lunarwing flight form,) and Trolls have a long-existing relationship with Hireek, the Bat Loa.

Well, the Zandalari are going a couple steps further. All Trolls have some relationship with dinosaurs (see the standard Troll racial mount) but Zandalari appear to have all dinosaur druid forms. Flight form will be a kind of Pterrodax. Moonkin from looks to be a saurian version of the healthy Arrakoa model we saw in Warlords. Bear form will be a big, spiky dinosaur that looks vaguely turtle-like (I believe it has the same skeleton as the standard bear.)

I wonder if, for flavor, we might see some of these forms renamed. Obviously things like Rake or Swipe work fine for a reptile, but calling in "Bear form" or having abilities like "Bristling Fur" might not quite fit.

(Image links seem to be broken, so you can see the forms at WoWhead.)

Lessons Learned from Leveling

With four new allied races (and apparently four, not two, on the way,) those of us who have the condition this blog is named after have a lot of leveling to do.

While I have tons of alts, I haven't done as much mass-leveling since Cataclysm. These days, my main for each class gets top priority, and the subsequent characters are generally left by the wayside unless I get a real itch.

With heritage armor to unlock, I've naturally been doing my due diligence on a number of alts. My Lightforged Paladin is the farthest along, at level 94, questing through Draenor. The Void Elf is nearly done with the BC/Wrath level range, while the Nightborne and Highmountain characters are still in the old world.

I had initially wanted to unlock loremaster achievements by playing these characters, and while I did finish off Kalimdor and Eastern Kingdoms, and I'm just one Amphitheater of Annihilation away from getting Northrend, I've also learned that: Holy crap, Blizzard has come a very long way in quest design.

Outland is currently the oldest untouched continent, though I also did Silithus on the Lightforged character, which might not have been touched. As a baseline, Outland leaves a lot to be desired. There are tons of quests in basically every zone where you're encouraged to kill basically everything you see. Oftentimes you go into an area, complete all the quests there, and then discover that you're supposed to go back for some other quest chain or simply because the chain you're on expects you to return. Having gotten Hellfire Peninsula, Zangarmarsh, and all by the Ring of Blood in Nagrand done, I think the new strategy for loremastering those is figuring out which of my old characters is closest to getting the achievement and coming back on them.

Northrend, as many remember, was a huge step up in quest design. There's far more narrative flow, and it's much less common for you to get ten quests at a time and then come back for ten more. Quests also have more varied objectives and unique mechanics. That being said, it's not quite there yet. There is a bit of jumbled rhythm, where you're encouraged to return to places you thought you were done with, though it's nowhere near as egregious as in Outland. Likewise, there are also far fewer "kill every thing in the zone that looks like this" quests.

Cataclysm is a mix of good and bad. It's incredibly linear, which does prevent you from getting the old "Christmas Tree" syndrome of showing up in a quest hub and getting a million different things to do, but it plays out more like a linear story than an open game world. Granted, the only Cataclysm stuff I did was about half of Vashj'ir (breaking the cinematic nature of it, they actually cut the whole ship journey out there, taking you directly from Stormwind Harbor to the sunken ship where the quests start, which I'm not happy about.)

Pandaria is, I think, a fair step closer to modern quest design. Jade Forest in particular does have a linear quest chain, but there are side-quest chains that feel substantial and worth your time but do totally split off from the main quest. Again, there's a lot of experimentation in quest types, and there's also a great deal more voice acting to help sell the story.

Which brings us to Draenor. This is, of course, somewhat more recent memory, but aside from a fair bit of busywork to introduce the Garrison concept, Shadowmoon Valley remains a gorgeous and fantastic zone, very much in the Jade Forest model, with side-quests that include a very plot-important murder mystery in the north east. Warlords' big sin was a lack of follow-up, which makes questing through it allow you to put on some rose-colored glasses.

Nearly halfway through Draenor, I'll be curious to level through the Broken Isles again - as it's actually been a fairly long time since I did that (I think my Druid was the last I leveled up, and that might have been as long as a year ago.)

Anyway, the good news is that the farther you go, the smoother leveling starts to feel. By the time I got to Pandaria, I was far less concerned with how soon it would take for me to get through a given level and more interested in the story of the zone I was playing through.

Everyone has different tastes, of course, and there are definitely some things that I felt nostalgic for (I tried doing all of Netherstorm on my Void Elf, but as cool as that zone is in concept and general aesthetics, I got frustrated with 2007-era quest design,) but here are my recommendations:

20-58 (or 60 if you feel like sticking with older zones): Basically anywhere you want. And feel free to double back to certain places: even if you're level 45, you can always go back to places like Hillsbrad or Southern Barrens if you haven't done them yet.)

58-80: I've really got to recommend Northrend here. Outland is based on a far grindier model of MMORPG.

80-90: The Cataclysm stuff is not too bad, but Pandaria's probably a bit more in line with what we've come to expect at this point. (You might notice the pattern here is: do the more recent stuff. Which is actually kind of an endorsement of the direction Blizzard has taken things.)

90-98: You're stuck with Draenor in this range, but that's not too bad, as Warlords' greatest strength was its leveling content. I will say I think Alliance has a better starting zone than Horde, but in either case I recommend leveling to 94 and going straight to Talador rather than Gorgrond, as the latter is definitely the least interesting zone. Personally I'd also head to Spires of Arrak as soon as you can (which I think is now level 95, rather than 96 as it used to be,) but that's just because I really like that zone. You could stick in Nagrand until level 100, but I think it's a better idea to head straight to the Broken Isles at 98.

Class Option Speculation for Future Allied Races

So far we have gotten four allied races, with two additional ones confirmed to be coming in the future (I'd imagine in the expansion proper) and one additional option that has been effectively but almost incontrovertibly confirmed (though not officially announced) thanks to datamining.

So a question arises: What classes can these races play?

Obviously, the four live ones we already know, but let's take a look at the upcoming ones:

Dark Iron Dwarves:

The only class we have confirmed here was one that could be considered controversial: Paladins. There are, of course, Dark Iron paladins in the Blackrock Depths dungeon, but the Dark Irons' reputation for being somewhat unsavory did make that perhaps non-obvious.

Given that Moira's introduction of the Dark Irons into the Alliance way back in Cataclysm meant Dwarf player characters could now be Mages and Warlocks, it seems pretty obvious that Dark Irons ought to have those classes as well.

With Paladins, it also seems likely they'd have the option to be Priests. Rogues, Warriors, and Hunters are also relatively universal class options, and I doubt that you'd have any trouble convincing anyone of those as reasonable class options.

One somewhat outside-the-box option that Blizzard says they're considering is Death Knights - Dark Irons were certainly around to be turned into Death Knights, and so it wouldn't be so odd to see this as an option - which I'm pretty happy about given that DKs haven't gotten new playable races since Cataclysm.

Shaman I think is a possibility, but unlikely. While the Dark Irons did have a strong connection to Ragnaros, their use of his power was more in the arcane manner - Fire Mages and Destruction Warlocks. The dwarves with a real shamanistic tradition are the Wildhammers.

Theoretically, Dark Irons would have just as much access to Monk training as their Bronzebeard cousins - the Dark Irons were officially in the Alliance as of Cataclysm, which was before Pandaren went around spreading the tradition.

Druids I think are right out - there's no real Druidic tradition for any Dwarves. Likewise, the only races that can't be Demon Hunters that I could imagine giving them (much as I wish I could have made a Worgen one) would be Orcs, Broken Draenei, or Naga if they ever introduce the latter two as playable - just given the representation among the Illidari.

Zandalari Trolls:

Well, we know that they'll have Druids and Shamans, as we've seen druid forms and shaman totems for them. As usual, I think we can expect Warriors, Hunters, and Rogues as fairly universal classes for them (Rogues seem to be fine for anyone who doesn't have hooves, though if Broken Draenei ever become a thing, they could also be Rogues.)

Priests are, I think, also likely given how Troll culture is very mystical and tied to the gods. Trolls also have a tradition of arcane magic, putting making Mages pretty likely. Warlocks, one might have forgotten, were not actually available to standard Trolls until Cataclysm, but they were brought in I think largely because there wasn't a particularly strong reason not to give them, and I don't think the Zandalari have any specific prohibitions against such things.

The Zandalari were technically around to be attacked by the Scourge, but their presence in Scourge-afflicted areas was minimal, which to me suggests Death Knights are unlikely. When it comes to Monks, I'd actually say that it's also very unlikely given that the Zandalari were ancient enemies of the Pandaren back when they were allied with the Mogu (man, questing in Kun Lai is going to be awkward on my Zandalari character. But I guess Searing Gorge will be for my Dark Iron...)

And of course, there's really no practical way they'd do Demon Hunters.

Paladins would be kind of an interesting choice. I can't recall if any of the Zandalari enemies have been Paladins, but we also don't really know what kind of temple-guard traditions they have. I'd put it at a lower than 50% chance, but not 0.

Mag'har Orcs:

For the most part, I'd say we're going to see the traditional Orc class options (pre Cataclysm,) meaning Warrior, Hunter, Shaman, Rogue... but possibly not Warlock. These guys are Iron Horde orcs, and specifically the ones who did not drink Gul'dan kool-aid. It's likely Grommash will be their leader, and so I think Fel magic is likely to be considered far too taboo.

But we could see some alternative options. For example, the Shadowmoon clan has a fairly strong Priestly tradition, so we could see Mag'har Priests. Mages are, I think, less likely - one could perhaps argue that the Blackrock clan employs mages, and of course, similar to Troll Warlocks, they might have given Orcs mages just because, well, why not?

Death Knights seem totally unreasonable, given that their timeline wasn't even connected to ours until after the Battle of Light's Hope and their Ner'zhul went down a different evil-magic path (Void instead of Necromancy.)

Demon Hunters, as usual, are out.

Druids are also probably out as there's no real Druidic tradition among Orcs (though I wouldn't mind getting a better sense of their connection to spirits like Lo'gosh, who either is Goldrinn or is an equivalent wolf spirit the Orcs conflate with Goldrinn.)

Theoretically anyone could be trained as a Monk, and the fact that basically all the live allied races can do it suggests that the Pandaren are definitely still spreading the tradition, so maybe that's going to go into the Warrior/Hunter/Rogue category of universality.

Mag'har Orc /silly and /flirt Emotes Datamined: Allied Race Confirmed

Well, given that they were one of the most common suggestions for "sub-races" when the idea first started floating around, and Blizzard mentioned them specifically as a possibility, it should not come as a big surprise that the fourth Horde allied race will be the Mag'har.

Now, let's get specific:

It appears that these are going to be from Draenor B, not Outland. The Mag'har on Outland were a very small population - the vast majority of Draenor A Orcs are already represented by the main Orc race in-game. Given that the demonic influence of the Legion was around for a far briefer period of time on Draenor B, it makes sense that many more of these Orcs would have the natural brown skin.

Given that Draneor B is in far better condition than Outland, and that while we steamrolled the Iron Horde, it was a pretty pure military defeat as opposed to an utter destruction of their civilization, it's likely that the former members of the Iron Horde are a larger population - possibly larger than the Horde's current Orc population. This would make them a really huge asset for the Horde, though one of the freaky consequences of bringing them on is that you might actually have multiple versions of existing people serving in the same Horde. We never saw a young Varok Saurfang in Warlords, but when the Horde recruits them, they might find a young badass pair of Blackrock brothers, Varok and Broxigar.

Despite only announcing six allied races with the expansion, they gave us four new character slots. I assumed that they had assumed most players had their Alliance and Horde characters on different servers, which would leave room for one new character of each of these races - plus one.

But with Mag'har as the next Horde allied race, that fourth slot is going to be pretty good to have around. The question, then, is what the Alliance gets next (Kul Tirasian human would be a pretty good counterpart to Mag'har Orc, seeing as how Orcs and Humans are kind of the ultimate mirror match.)

Where Would Wrath 2 Take Place?

One could argue that, together, Warlords of Draenor and Legion served as something of a sequel to The Burning Crusade. Warlords gave us a vision of Outland before it was Outland (it's really weird doing Terrokar Forest having now seen Talador) and Legion brought back Illidan Stormrage and the sci-fi space armada version of the Burning Legion that we had seen in BC.

There's a fair amount of evidence that, while Battle For Azeroth is likely to involve a great deal of Old God content (unless it's Azshara - though she seems to have been announced as an earlier boss - I think N'zoth is a strong candidate for final boss of the expansion,) there are several hints that the Shadowlands will play a big role in what comes next.

And that actually makes sense. While we've had back-to-back expansions focused on certain major evils of the Warcraft universe before (Cataclysm and Mists had lots of Old God stuff, Warlords and Legion were obvious both big on Legion stuff,) it also seems like a good idea to diversify the threats we face. While the Old Gods were not dealt with in any permanent way in either Cataclysm or Mists (though I maintain that we did manage to finally rid Azeroth of the last bit of Y'shaarj - but that leaves one untouched and two only beaten but not broken,) Legion really seemed to wrap up the Burning Legion's story in a definitive way.

If the philosophical realm of Death, along with the physical (or quasi-physical) realm of the Shadowlands, are Warcraft's third major source of evil, they're the piece we've explored the least. It's not even canon (yet) that the Scourge and the Lich King are anything other than a creation of demons - that it's just a demonic tool that broke off and became independent.

But frankly, given how iconic the Scourge are, and how well they fit as an independent threat, it would make sense to put them in a separate category, allowing us to take them just as seriously as the Old Gods and the Legion.

But we have a couple issues to consider:

One is that Wrath dealt with the Scourge in a similar way that Legion dealt with the... uh... Legion. Its leader was not eliminated - Arthas may be dead, but there is still a Lich King on the Frozen Throne, much as Sargeras is not dead, but imprisoned. But with Northrend conquered, the Scourge seems pretty contained.

There's also the question of repetition. Would a Scourge-focused expansion not just be Wrath all over again? We've already had the grueling war of attrition against a foe that replenishes its troops with each one of yours it kills and fought our way to the top of its sovereign's dread citadel. Do we really want to fight the Lich King again, even if it's a different Lich King?

Well, here's a couple notes:

First off, the undead is a bit like a cancer: You can eliminate the largest concentration of it, but if it has spread (and the Scourge sure as hell has spread - there's even Scourge in the Barrens, controlling the Quillboar,) you could always see it build up somewhere else.

Second: it's possible that a Death/Shadowlands/Necromancy-themed expansion would see the Scourge take on a very, very different form. For instance, we know that Drustvar in Kul Tiras is an area where the humans killed off the indigenous Drust, who then slid into the Shadowlands in order to haunt Drustvar from just outside conventional reality.

We also know that some powerful entity from the Shadowlands taught Odyn and Helya how to create the Val'kyr. I've always suspected that it might be this entity that Kil'jaeden made the Lich King from, which would suggest that the Lich King's designation as Death God is not actually that far off the mark.

Might we then see a far more diverse group of powers from the Shadowlands, united under a new sovereign? Could the Lich King turn his attention away from the Living and toward the Dead as a source of new recruits?

If that were the case, we might see a very different version of the Scourge - far more mystical and less militaristic.

And maybe to do that, Bolvar would abandon the Frozen Throne. Or perhaps, some other entity - maybe the powerful entity from the Shadowlands - would shatter the Frozen Throne and reclaim the title of Death God.