Roll for Lore

Dark Sun is one of the most brutal, strange, and unforgettable campaign settings in Dungeons & Dragons history.In this episode of Roll For Lore, we dive into the world of Athas, the post-apocalyptic setting introduced for AD&D 2nd Edition in 1991. We cover the rise of the sorcerer-kings, the Cleansing Wars, Rajaat, defiling magic, the destruction of the natural world, and how Athas went from a lush planet to a deadly wasteland beneath a crimson sun.We also explore what everyday life is actually like in Dark Sun, including slavery, gladiatorial combat, psionics, merchant houses, city-states like Tyr and Urik, the scarcity of metal and water, strange Athasian food, and why arcane magic is feared while psychic powers are completely normal.If you love Dungeons & Dragons lore, classic TSR campaign settings, AD&D 2nd Edition, Dark Sun, Athas, sorcerer-kings, psionics, or post-apocalyptic fantasy, this episode is for you.Welcome to Athas. Try not to die of thirst.

Tharizdun doesn't get a chapter in most Forgotten Realms books. He gets a footnote, a whisper, and a very large lock.This episode digs into the Chained God: the interloper deity who wandered in from Oerth, went irretrievably mad, and, depending on which edition you're reading, planted the seed that grew into the Abyss. We trace his fall, his imprisonment by the same gods who couldn't stomach what he'd built, and the alias he wears when he wants something done: the Elder Elemental Eye.Then there's the Toril problem. Tharizdun isn't a Faerûnian god, but he keeps turning up anyway. A cult in western Chessenta in 1340 DR that hired bandits and consorted with demons before an alliance wiped it out. The plague demon Murmur seeding a new order inside the Firestorm Cabal in 1479 DR. The elemental cults of the Dessarin Valley that became Princes of the Apocalypse. Plus the permanent confusion with Ghaunadaur, who also answers to Elder Eye, because naming things is hard.And the dogma, or what passes for it. Tharizdun has been mad and chained so long he can't actually tell anyone what he wants. His worshippers get shrieking babble and have to interpret. What they've landed on: channel him power, recover his relics, and unmake the world so he can walk out.Tharizdun, Chained God, Elder Elemental Eye, D&D lore, Dungeons and Dragons gods, Forgotten Realms deities, Greyhawk gods, the Abyss origin, Princes of the Apocalypse, Elemental Evil, obyriths, Dawn War, Ghaunadaur, Elder Elemental God, Dessarin Valley cults, Firestorm Cabal, Murmur plague demon, Chessenta, D&D cosmology, mad gods D&D, Temple of Elemental Evil, D&D podcast, D&D history podcast, Faerun lore#Tharizdun #ChainedGod #ElderElementalEye #DnD #DungeonsAndDragons #DnDLore #ForgottenRealms #Greyhawk #TheAbyss #PrincesOfTheApocalypse #ElementalEvil #Ghaunadaur #DnDGods #DnDPodcast #TTRPG #DMTips #Faerun #RollForLore

The Imaskari built the greatest magical empire in the history of Toril, and then they did something so monstrous that it took their victims' gods four thousand years to make them pay for it.This episode traces the full arc of Imaskar, from a fertile basin in −8350 DR to the dust desert it is today. We cover the Lord Artificers who ruled without gods, the portal network that let them conquer a continent by stepping through walls, and the kobold kingdom they erased using golems built specifically for the job. We get into the plague that drove out their priests, and the decision that doomed them: Lord Artificer Khotan opening a gate to a world without magic and dragging back hundreds of thousands of people who would become the Mulan.Then we go underground. Deep Imaskar, the City of the Great Seal, where one wizard-lord's household hid for nearly four millennia behind a ward so powerful it convinced all of Faerûn they were extinct. We cover the necromancer coup, Chaschara's revolution, the invasion that came through their own portal, and the Elder Evil Pandorym, waiting inside a demiplane that the merchants of Vaelan were quietly mining and selling as luxury prosthetic limbs.And we finish in the present, because the new Unearthed Arcana playtest brings the Deep Imaskari back with the Path of Unlight barbarian and the Imaskarcanist wizard, and this time they intend to conquer the Underdark.Sources include Lost Empires of Faerûn, Underdark, The Grand History of the Realms, and Bruce R. Cordell's Darkvision.Imaskar, Imaskari, Deep Imaskar, Forgotten Realms lore, D&D lore podcast Unearthed Arcana Underdark Options, Path of Unlight, Imaskarcanist, Unlight D&D, new D&D subclasses 2026. Underdark, Great Seal, Raurin, Plains of Purple Dust, Mulan, Mulhorand, Lord Artificer, Imaskarcana, Celestial Nadir, Pandorym, Elder Evils, Ususi Manaallin, High Imaskar, Faerûn history, fallen empires D&D. who were the Imaskari, why did the Imaskari go underground, what is Deep Imaskar, how did Imaskar fall, D&D ancient empires, Forgotten Realms Underdark cities, Path of Unlight barbarian explained#DnD #DungeonsAndDragons #ForgottenRealms #DnDLore #Imaskar #DeepImaskar #Underdark #UnearthedArcana #PathOfUnlight #Imaskarcanist #TTRPG #DnDPodcast #LorePodcast #Faerun #ElderEvils #DnD2026

This is a great place to start if you are new to Dungeons and Dragons and DnD lore and you want to know what the Dungeon is all about, we will talk about famous Dungeons and the real world origins.

She's been in print since 1983. She made it into the 3rd Edition Player's Handbook deity list. She survived the Edition Wars and she's still in the current game. And if you asked a hundred D&D players to tell you one thing about her, most of them couldn't.This week Jess drags Wee Jas out of the Greyhawk footnotes and makes the case that the goddess of magic, death, vanity, and law is one of the most underused deities in the entire game. On paper those four portfolios look like a grab bag. In practice they're all the same thing: preservation. Knowledge, precedent, souls, and faces — Wee Jas is the goddess who doesn't let things rot.To get there we have to talk about the Suel Imperium, a mage-ruled empire with slave labor, engineered peoples, and a sixty-three year war it could not win. We cover the Invoked Devastation and the Rain of Colorless Fire, including Gary Gygax's own descriptions of both from a Q&A in Paul J. Stormberg's Oerth Journal — material that never made it into a sourcebook. Then the aftermath: a goddess whose worshippers essentially prayed a death portfolio onto her because nobody else was left to tend the dead.Plus the Ruby Church and its hospice work, the Ruby Knight Vindicator prestige class, her stance on necromancy (consent matters), her rivalry with Nerull, and a very long detour into the battle cubes of Acheron.Wee Jas, Greyhawk deities, D&D gods, Suel Imperium, Suloise, Baklunish, Rain of Colorless Fire, Invoked Devastation, Nerull, Ruby Knight Vindicator, Acheron, Oerth, Gary Gygax, Oerth Journal, Dragon Magazine 350, Core Beliefs, D&D death gods, necromancy in D&D, goddess of magic, Dungeons and Dragons lore podcast, Greyhawk lore, D&D pantheon, prestige classes, 3.5 edition, D&D history

You have said Bigby's name out loud at a table. You have pointed at a monster, squeezed it with a giant spectral fist, and felt powerful doing it. But do you actually know the man behind the hand? Probably not... and he is so much weirder than the spell.This week we dig into Bigby, the most powerful anxious person in the history of Greyhawk. We trace him from his origins as a throwaway evil NPC (created in 1973 by Rob Kuntz, not Gary Gygax, for once) all the way to his current existence as a gnome. Along the way: the bumblebee sigil nobody can explain, his career as an exceedingly picky eater, and how "Bigby, Riggby, and Zigby" quietly solves the fifty-year mystery of where his name actually came from.We cover the famous hand spells, the founding of the Circle of Eight and its refusal to ever let the good guys win, the fake merchant cover identity, the death at the hands of a frost giant, and the reincarnation that turned the most famous wizard in D&D into a gnome who does not buy his best friend's excuse for one second.From Oerth to Bigby Presents: Glory of the Giants, this is the full story of a name in a spellbook who finally got a life. Plus the AI art controversy nobody asked for.You know the spell. Come meet the man.

There are two events known as Tearfall in the history of Faruen and they are both buck wild, so if you like Dungeons and Dragons lore and are especially fond of apocalyptic dragon stuff.... JOIN US!!!

One hundred episodes deep, and we finally set foot in the Feywild. Welcome to the Plane of Faerie, a warped mirror of the Material Plane where the colors run too bright, the emotions run too hot, and a single night of dancing can cost you a decade of your life.In our 100th episode, Sean and Jess trace the Feywild from its earliest D&D roots through its modern 5e form. We break down the great fey courts: Titania and the Summer Court on the Seelie side, and the Queen of Air and Darkness ruling the Gloaming Court for the Unseelie. We get into the Archfey themselves, the eladrin and their seasonal moods, and the sheer variety of fey that call this plane home, from harmless pixies and sprites to redcaps, quicklings, and the truly nasty hags lurking in the deep woods.We also wander into the Domains of Delight, those pocket realms ruled by individual Archfey, and talk about why the Feywild remains one of the most dangerous places in the multiverse precisely because it looks so beautiful. Time distortion, stolen memories, bargains you should never have made. It is all here.Thank you for a hundred episodes of monsters, planes, and Forgotten Realms lore. This one is for the community that got us here.Grab your iron, mind your manners, and never eat the food.