Roll for Lore

Directly beneath the gleaming streets of Waterdeep, past a mile and a half of solid rock and very bad decisions, sits the most wretched city in the Forgotten Realms. No laws. No government. No sunlight. Just pirates, slavers, illithids, drow factions who hate each other, a beholder crime lord who does most of his business without ever showing up in person, a renegade illithid who has decided to worship the god of knowledge, an aboleth running a spy ring through the sewer pipes on behalf of a kraken who is trying to become a god, and twelve floating flaming skulls who will absolutely kill you if you start a fire or try to impose a tariff. Welcome to Skullport.This week Sean and Jess dig into one of the Forgotten Realms' most unhinged locations, the Port of Shadows, using the 1999 AD&D 2nd Edition sourcebook as their bible. They cover the whole thing: the ancient Netherese mages who accidentally became disembodied skull wizards when Netheril fell, the thousand-year-old necromancer who showed up uninvited and built a city around them in under three decades, the slave economy that somehow requires more logistical sophistication than most legitimate port cities, the five Iron Ring members who hate each other but have agreed that a bigger pie is worth the occasional assassination attempt, and the deeply codependent relationship between Skullport and the city of splendors directly above it that absolutely does not want to talk about any of this. Plus the chaos frog demon who caved the ceiling in and the goddess murder that finished the job.It's a love letter to one of the most creative, deeply cursed settings TSR ever put to paper. Roll for Lore.

In this DnD lore cast we discuss the higher level demons found in the infinate layers of the abyss. You might need these for a planescape game but you also might need them for a Forgotten Realms or Eberron game because Demons are crazy and the Abyss touches everything. We go over:Yochlol - They serve LothAlkilith- one of the slimiest of all slime boysNalfeshnee - one of the OG D&D demons and one of my personal favorites.Nabassu - a classic set to terrorize your groupsMarilith - The military tacticians of the underworld. Balor - the big bad demon daddy. https://www.patreon.com/c/RollForLore

https://www.patreon.com/cw/RollForLoreTake a deep breath and grab your trident... this week on Roll for Lore, Sean and Jess head underwater to cover two of the Forgotten Realms' most criminally underused races: merfolk and tritons. We're talking full lore breakdown, from their first appearance way back in the original Monster Manual all the way through to their modern 5e treatment as both monsters and playable races.We dig into their gods first, because the sea pantheon is way more dramatic than people realize. Eadro, the merfolk and locathah creator deity, leads a coalition of good and neutral aquatic gods called the asathalfinare... and they're locked in an eternal cold war against Panzuriel, a kraken-god backing the sahuagin and their shark-toothed nightmares. Tritons get their own divine champion too, Persana, who's basically the sea's answer to a paladin order. We trace how this rivalry plays out across the Sea of Fallen Stars and the sunken city of Myth Nantar, one of the coolest underwater locations the Realms has ever produced.From there we get into the stats and crunch... how merfolk show up as a low-CR humanoid with that classic amphibious trait and a spear, while tritons evolved from a Princes of the Apocalypse era ally race into a full playable option with elemental resistance and a serious grudge against demons. We talk plotlines too: elemental cults stirring up trouble in the depths, sahuagin raids on merfolk settlements, and how tritons ended up as frontline defenders against the Elemental Chaos itself.Dungeons & Dragons, Forgotten Realms, Merfolk, Tritons, D&D Lore, Aquatic Races, D&D Gods, Eadro, Sea of Fallen Stars, Myth Nantar, D&D Monsters, Tabletop RPG, Sahuagin, DM Resources

We are kicking off a deep dive into the Abyss and honestly... we don't even know where to start because the Abyss is massive and deeply unhinged. So we're doing what any reasonable lore nerds would do, we're going in challenge rating order and starting at the bottom. And the bottom of the demonic food chain is a wild and strange place to be.This episode is all about the low CR demons, the weird funky little guys that don't get talked about enough. We're talking manes, the pitiful miserable bottom rung of demon society... dretches, which are basically just clouds of suffering with legs... quasits, the sneaky little imps of the Abyss... and more. These aren't the flashy demon lords, these aren't the ones with cool names and big campaigns built around them. These are the ones that make the Abyss feel genuinely alien and gross and wrong in a way that honestly slaps.Sean and Jess dig into where these things come from, what they actually are in the lore, how they've changed across editions, and why the bottom tier of demonkind might just be the most interesting part of the whole hierarchy. Buckle up because it gets weird.D&D demon lore, Dungeons and Dragons Abyss, D&D podcast, manes demon D&D, dretch demon lore, quasit D&D, low CR demons, D&D monster lore podcast, Forgotten Realms demons, D&D 5e demon types, demon hierarchy D&D, D&D lore podcast, Fiendish Codex, Planes of Chaos, D&D planar lore, tabletop RPG lore, D&D deep dive podcast

Werewolves, werebears, wererats, wereravens, and the gods who fight over them. We dig into lycanthropes across the D&D multiverse and the lore is way deeper than you think. We cover Strahd's werewolf pack in Curse of Strahd and the wereraven Keepers of the Feather quietly resisting him. We get into Eberron and the Silver Flame's lycanthropic purge, the shifter genocide that followed, and the Pure Flame zealots still hunting today. We talk about the Forgotten Realms and the eternal war between Selûne and Malar over what lycanthropy was meant to be. Plus we tell you who the most famous werebear in all of D&D is. Sleep with one eye open.patreon.com/RollForLore

Strap on your torches (and maybe a few extra) because this week we're descending into the Underdark, the sprawling network of caverns, tunnels, and lightless cities buried beneath the surface of the Forgotten Realms. From the drow of Menzoberranzan to the mind flayers, beholders, and the horrors lurking in the dark, the Underdark is home to some of the most iconic monsters and most brutal adventures in Dungeons & Dragons history.We dig into the origins of the Underdark, how it evolved across D&D editions, the deadly ecosystems and societies that thrive without sunlight, and why this setting has captured the imaginations of players for decades. Whether you're a longtime Dungeon Master plotting your party's doom or a curious newcomer wondering what's down there, this episode is your guide to the deep.Grab your darkvision and join us as we explore D&D's most dangerous underground frontier.Keywords: Underdark, Dungeons & Dragons, D&D lore, drow, mind flayers, Forgotten Realms, tabletop RPG, DnD monsters, Menzoberranzan, D&D podcast