D&D Lore - Bytopia and Elysium

[@mikfhan]

Elysium is nasty in a subtle way; after a few long rests, visiting heroes essential for Faerun's existence may decide that no longer matters. "If you find yourself in green fields with the sun on your face, do not be troubled; you are in Elysium, and you are already dead!" -- Gladiator

[@JanusHoW]

In the grand scheme of things, Toril, and indeed, any one planet in the D&D multiverse, DOESN'T matter. The only single place that truly, absolutely matters on the cosmic level beyond an entire plane is Sigil.

[@Kuraisilverwind]

Your voice is great for explaining, and your choice of pictures helps immensely when I'm trying to understand how the planes hang together!

[@cuspiscentium]

Bit sad the Perpetually Drunk and Hedonistic Elysium Dragons were not mentioned. supposedly their drinking and feasting has made them the only dragon variant that gets fat, and flavors their breath weapon to inebriation breath and a thunderous belch. their Hedonism and ability to change size at will, like a more powerful enlarge reduce, has also made them responsible for the creation of more half dragons than all other planar dragons combined.

[@Jorphdan]

Totally missed that, and it's awesome. I'll have to go back and research some more!

[@pancakes8670]

Fat Horny Drunk Dragons I swear to God one of the D&D Writers is a Furry

[@Dinosaurianationazation]

@@Jorphdan Not to mention the Guardinals.

[@joshpwnsnoobs]

"adamantine dragons" wow, hadnt ever heard of them. crazy! thanks for another good video.

[@TheIndoorAdventurers]

One of the players that is in my group has been part of two of our campaigns, and in each one they decide to worship a diety from the greek or even celtic pantheon. In Storm King's Thunder, he was a devout paladin of Dian Cecht, and in our current adventure he is a cleric of Apollo

[@peridoodle2644]

I usually run my forgotten realms campaigns with the greek, egptian, norse, ect gods as well as the normal FR gods. I mean, the days of the week are still the same and 6 out of the 7 are named after Norse gods with the last one being named after Saturn, the Roman form of Kronos. Not to mention that there is literally a town named Baldur's Gate after the Norse god Baldur. It seems like they are supposed to be there at least in some capacity

[@otheusrex2190]

AJ Pickett and Jorphdan, the two channels of ByTubia

[@khamulthewack4732]

I ran a campaign where Greek, Egyptian and Norse gods were all options for my campaign back in 3.5. They didn't have as much of a stake in the world though since they weren't actually gods of the world setting, they more operated as distant powers who had their own agendas. As a result people could worship them if they wanted divine powers but wanted to play fast and loose with their alignment. E.g. a cleric could be chaotic evil and worship Hades, a Lawful neutral god, so long as he worked towards guiding soul of the deceased to him rather than, say, Nerull. This sort of wiggle room made worshipers of the more strict native deities dislike followers of such distant and reckless gods, and they'd often work to suppress or even root out such practices.

[@streetbob95]

I DM a campaign with Greek Gods. Zeus is the main antagonist, but the players have also been in conflict with Hades, Nyx, Hecate and Nemesis. I made up a couple of gods for the players to be *reliable* allies with, Aleth, the God of Heroes, and Elyssia (named after Elysium), the Goddess of Hope and Rebirth. The campaign has been going for about two years now and it was my very first experience DMing.

[@taylorwood5775]

I do look forward to these

[@lorddraekan]

Same! gives me a lot of good ideas as a DM.

[@opalthediloalt9595]

I do play with all possible gods, from real mythology to stuff like WoW and the Cthulhu mythos.

[@j-fallard5351]

Love the fact that you speak about each planes. Keep them coming, you do great work :)

[@sumsum3873]

I’m absolutely obsessed with DnD lore thank you so much for making these videos especially because I have a reading disability and going through PDFs would be HELLLLL

[@ollininvincible]

Your vids are a big help to my campaign. I can share them with players and give them just enough knowledge about an area so they aren't overly confused when they arrive there. Thanks for producing these.

[@Jorphdan]

That's great to hear, and you're welcome :D

[@claytongarmon8806]

I love your videos. You explain everything so well. I am going to start DM'ing soon and it's my first experience DM'ing. I want to make sure to get my realm lore understood so my plays can traverse the realms if they wish. I was having trouble understanding the realms but your videos help so much. I honestly look forward to them. Keep the videos coming :)

[@Jorphdan]

+Clayton Garmon thanks so much! And have fun DMing, you'll be great. I'm happy to be a resource for you and your games. :)

[@thinking-ape6483]

Late to the party but most of the gods of Mulhorandi (Forgotten Realms) were/are Egyptian; Thoth, Set, Isis, Osiris, etc.

[@arbiterskiss6692]

I can imagine stepping into Bytopia and Elysium by accident in some places where I live. I think I could make that a plot hook come to think of it.

[@colemurphy3585]

Man, these videos have been quite compelling and inspiring, really great stuff!

[@liambutler1586]

Another great video! they're always fun to watch and I look forward to the next one :D

[@Jorphdan]

awesome!

[@deathwatch95]

Yes we play with all gods it can get pretty chaotic but fun

[@forloveofthepage2361]

I play with Pharaonic, Olympian, and Nordic gods alongside the traditional D&D gods. I made a separate material plane that was long hidden in the astral Realm/Sea/Etc. When the plane was found, all the gods wanted a piece of the action and it changed this relatively young plane through war, conquest, and terraforming. The Pantheons united to carve out large portions of land, while racial and other gods had a more insidious effect. It allows for some great high level adventures.

[@XVindicare]

Stay awhile and listen. ^^

[@Ufo757]

At 4:52 on the horizon in between clouds is a message maybe you didn't intend?

[@eclairz9275]

"Link's in the dooblidoo" Now where have i heard that before? :P

[@Randomdudefromtheinternet]

Elysium, the ultimate vacational site 11/10 will totally recommend.

[@JPL207]

Hey I just looked up adamantine dragons and there breath weapons were thunder and slowing. Could some one explain why that is.

[@Thorerx]

I do use the Egyptian Gods. They are the mighty warriors and leaders that ascended to godhood of the Turathi empire before the empire made a deal with the Devils.

[@gustavopaez2444]

Thanks for making this video

[@Jorphdan]

It's my pleasure

[@bradleystewart5444]

I like these adimantine dragons already.

[@digunder14]

in 5e the phoenix is more elemental as is the zaratan, and resides on the elemental plane of fire, the one in elysium is likely the more biological creature version from prior editions

[@Yotam1703]

0:26 red queen!

[@goragabdula8203]

Great! Bytopia is GREAT!

[@JohnSmith-xm4dk]

As I watch these videos on the realms of Dnd I can't help but think about how much detail and thought was put into this. I also like to imagine myself as an immortal traversing the realms and writing down my experiences to tell everyone back in the material plane. Do you think this is how european explorers felt telling their homelands about the new world that was the americas?

[@PartigradeCannon]

I had a campaign where the Mulhorandhi pantheon was prominent. They're Egyptian in all but name.

[@Jorphdan]

Neat, I'm thinking of using the Mulhorandhi pantheon in my upcoming campaign. The PCs were transported to Zakhara, and I like the idea of gods they've never heard of before.

[@EdricLysharae]

The Good and Evil planes consume you; the Lawful and Chaotic planes unravel you. Bytopia is by far the best Outer Plane to end up in.

[@oliverhannaford2564]

Thanks Jorphdan for your DM videos, I'm using your summaries of the planes to help DM my campaign. Question, what have you read from Greek mythology?

[@Jorphdan]

I've read quite a bit, as a teenager I had a great book "the Greek Myths" by Robert Graves that I would flip through. Reading whatever story I came across.

[@tyleremery7088]

My current campaign party is planning on visiting Bytopia next session (one of our players is a cat familiar for an old character in the world and we're going to try and get her soul to bring her back to life), so this video and the astral plane one are nice references.

[@Jorphdan]

Neat!

[@tyleremery7088]

@@Jorphdan I'm just hoping my 8 INT/10 WIS, chaotic neutral barbarian makes it through the adventure alright and doesn't switch alignments lol. The cat, who has a headband of intellect and is a celestial, and the party's scarecrow, a construct, will probably be fine. The changling will probably fare better than me too, because I'm the only one with a penalty to INT and a relatively low WIS. It will certainly be interesting, whatever ends up happening.

[@shilohelgin2408]

Greek and Egyptian gods exist in the greater context of the d and d multiverse outside real space entering it only with the permission of Ao for example the mulhorandi gods I believe are just the Egyptians gods

[@glamourweaver]

Real world mythology Pantheons controlling territory in the Outer Planes was a big thing in Planescape back in the day. Olympus was in Arborea (CG), Asgard was in Ysgars (CNG), the bulk of the Egyptian gods were in Arcadia (LNG) along with the Babylonian god Marduk, Tir an Nog was in the Outlands (N), I think the Jade Emperor atop the Celestial Bureaucracy was in Mechanus (LN), etc etc. I feel like the ethos of revenge cycles, poetry, and heroism through individual prowess, etc should have pushed the Celtic gods more toward Arborea or Ysgard, but I assume the appropriation of the term “Druids” by D&D to refer to true neutral nature spellcasters, made them want to put the Celtic Pantheon somewhere Neutral, for that association (even though D&D nature spellcasters have very little in common with the bardic judge-priests of Celtic culture and myth).

[@zach1972]

I've played a normal 5e module where I was a War Cleric with Ares as my patron

[@Castle3179]

I play D&D with all deities.

[@Carbadonia]

Yes I have made a homebrew world called Azrayil and it contains versions of pantheons from our mythologies. Egyptian, Greek, Shinto, Norse and Roman are the ones I included as well as one based on the Babylonian one.

[@brianlanaghan3063]

Yes I allowed Egyptian gods especially in desert campaigns

[@Jorphdan]

nice

[@GrayvesX]

I am making my first campaign and the planes are a big part of it. We are doing it that all the gods exist but it's dependant on the culture

[@mattopmasterX]

I just started DMing a campaign in a fantasy steampunk revisitation of the real world, with the Roman Empire ruling the Mediterranean, with the Greek Pantheon as the religion in the area

[@Jorphdan]

sweet!

[@mltiago]

How is the afterlife in the realms?

[@Jorphdan]

I wouldn't know, I haven't died yet.

[@mltiago]

@@Jorphdan ha ha 😑

[@adamholcomb200]

I've never played with any gods of real world mythology just FR gods

[@N-cromancer]

I think it would have been an interesting concept that the neutral evil plane mirrored bytopia and connected. as in if you continued traveling west in bytopia, it would eventually hit the easternmost planetoid of like carceri, then if you continued, it would leave the westernmost planetoid of carceri landing on the easternmost point of bytopia.

[@soshp]

You do a great job and you have the voice of Cain. I just wish you did more digging into unique features.

[@Jorphdan]

I'll see what I can do for future videos. I try to keep them as digestible bites of lore, but digging into more particular topics can be great for future videos. :)

[@AlwaysDecent]

Do the nine hells next re-edit: I just found it thanks but really wish there were stat blocks for the archdevils so I could use them in detail

[@itsworth76]

Look further back into his video history, he's done them before in pretty good detail.

[@Jorphdan]

done: kzbin.info/www/bejne/fn6Vgp6dmKykipo

[@AlwaysDecent]

Jorphdan thanks :) have u done anything about the far realm also?

[@Jorphdan]

not yet, so much to cover :)

[@enriqueserrano7413]

Ok Jorfdan

[@emanuelcamuglia5984]

we use the historic pantheons listed on the PHB in our campaign. there are four continents in my setting and the different pantheons rule each one: east the olympics, a mediterranean region that you would ratter call an archipelago. south the egypcian golden gods in a great contient of extremes.and to the north and west the Celtic and Nord pantheons closer to one another than the south and eastern continents. these last two are said to have portals to other worlds and in the northern one it's said that you can see a tree greater than the world at sunset during the solstice. rumors also tell that across the ice crossing the planes without north there's a great mountainous jungle-covered continent where gods and demons walk among mortals and the Law of Heaven is Absolute for good and evil beings, being Chaos the true antagonistic force and there's no real divission between magic and martial prowess. of course these are just uncle's tales invented by bored troubadours to amaze the rabble and relieve them of their copper for more. next thing they're going to make up is a lost land of people who feed their blood to their savage gods for making the sun rise or flat continent of desert in the middle of nowhere with forests of white trees where you have to use a pointy hat or get mauled by treetop-dwelling badgers that jump to maul you and eat your brain and where conquering army of sentient giant birds destroyed the civilized peoples long ago.

[@Jorphdan]

Super neat, I love it. Thanks for sharing, great comment.

[@emanuelcamuglia5984]

thank you. we've been playing this settingfor at least a year. forgot to mention that non-human deities exist too, they are considered serfs to the main pantheons but these are not considered human either, the closest to a human deity is the titan Prometheus for who i'm making a warlock pact, but apart from that they just pop up everywhere out of nowhere. the D&D deities like the greyhawk or faerun gods are called Divines and Profanes and are considered traveling deities trought the cosmos or "pagan interpretations of the true gods".

[@Jpteryx]

I'm sort of curious, are there terms distinguishing Lawful and Chaotic celestials, like how Demons and Devils distinguish fiends?

[@Jorphdan]

There aren't from what I can tell. Celestials (or Angels or Aasimon) can be Chaotic Good, Neutral Good, or Lawful Good. They can be any alignment, embodying concepts such as protection, valor, and vengeance. Found this info from the planar races on Wikipedia. en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Major_planar_races Good question though thanks! :)

[@loyalistredcoat4560]

Angels can be any alignment, as said. In addition though, there is a set of good aligned outsider races that mirror the fiends. Archon of Celstia are Lawful Good and mirror the Lawful Evil Devils Agathion of Elysium are Neutral Good and mirror the Neutral Evil Yugoloth (greater) Eladrin are Chaotic Good and mirror the Chaotic Evil Demons

[@danepoole2625]

I have been using greek gods for my dnd games before i even knew it was included in the phb

[@danieloneal7137]

Yes, when I started playing back in the early 80s, it was common to have your characters worship the Norse gods or Classical Greek, Roman, and Egyptian deities. In the old days of AD&D, the original pantheons of Greyhawk and the Forgotten Realms hadn’t yet permeated the rules like they do now. After all, the original Deities and Demigods was full of pantheons from mythology and literature, without any Boccobs or Lathanders to be found. I kind of hate how they’ve taken real-world pantheons out of the Great Wheel.

[@SanguineBanker]

Another late response - but at my table, we play with a balanced, but truncated list of deities from Forgotten Realms.

[@AidanSolunis]

I ran a 3.5 D&D game with the greek gods that took place on earth

[@Jorphdan]

+Aidan Robinson I approve, I think this would be super fun

[@AidanSolunis]

it took place around 264bc the party was all half monster and they ended up leaving greece went to sicily and started the first punic war.

[@GigachadVTuberEnjoyer]

seems like elysium is the perfect place for my evil wizard to hide out.

[@glamourweaver]

We all know Arborea is the real Bitopia... if you know what I mean *wink wink, nudge nudge*

[@303Thatoneguy]

What realm does Tempus live in?

[@Jorphdan]

Limbo! "The shared realm of Tempus and the Red Knight can be found on Limbo" en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Outer_Plane

[@303Thatoneguy]

Jorphdan thanks dude

[@AidanSolunis]

have you thought of doing a video about the Major Faerûnian deities?

[@Jorphdan]

+Aidan Robinson I have! No plans in the works but it's definitely something I want to cover.

[@blahlbinoa]

Not yet, but I've been thinking of making a campaign in ancient Greek lore

[@Jorphdan]

I know after I said that I started thinking, a campaign set in ancient Egypt would be pretty sweet.

[@Anamnesis010]

True Neutral it is.

[@deathwatch95]

Some times we play with them

[@robhoteling5552]

3e had the Egyptian gods as the Mulhorandi pantheon

[@StraboSE]

I played a Hades Grave Cleric

[@nateberriman6746]

I play with chaos gods

[@MGC-XIII]

Couldn't you play with any god you want? And I would assume the Norse gods are in the lore as well?

[@Jorphdan]

yep you can, I was just curious if there were people that did. For me DnD has always been the Forgotten Realms gods rather than Egyptian, Greek, etc. And yes Norse gods are in DnD too.

[@MGC-XIII]

I once took part in a roleplaying session based on DnD, but it had the Greek gods in it. One of our party members turned out to be a son of Poseidon, it was pretty good.

[@StephenGillie]

An epi-tome is a book that only occurs here.

[@tommcd5943]

Mostly Nordic, due to my friends preferences but yes

[@VengefulJarl]

Remember the Imaskari slaves prayed to the Egyptian gods.

[@tylerbeadle-follis3338]

I love your lore videos but is the "link's in the dooblydoo" refence to Matt Colville? since he makes videos for dungeon masters. Just curious, also if you haven't checked him out GO WATCH HIS VIDEOS!

[@Jorphdan]

Yep love Matt Colville, in fact I made this video on April Fools! kzbin.info/www/bejne/jqObZJWchK56n6c Dooblydo is common for lots of youtubers. It was first coined by Wheezy Waiter, Colville certainly has made it popular in the DnD World though :)

[@tylerbeadle-follis3338]

I had not known that. thank you.

[@gagedoyle3801]

I’ll be honest Bitopia and it’s weird Mirror/Gravity world thing terrifies me to no end

[@martianmatt82]

420th like! Yay

[@stacia114]

I know this is a few years late, but I've never been a fan of using ACTUAL gods from real world mythos in D&D. It feels sort of immersion breaking? Using them as inspirations? I can totally get behind that. But using their name, appearance, and portfolio to a T just feels odd.

[@Diamondpigman01]

I play dnd with all gods

[@Jorphdan]

what class do they play?

[@Diamondpigman01]

@@Jorphdan Thats not what I meant 🤣

[@bunnybear1347]

22nd

[@daftwulli6145]

OH come on how can you call yourself a dragon with silver scales ? You can´t even afford gold scales ? Are the other dragons making fun of you for being so poor ?

[@paragonexperience]

Who the hell plays with Greek and Egyptian gods in DnD especially in Forgotten Realms. Adding those was probably the greatest mistake in the realms.

[@milanpatel5788]

No

[@amberroland2589]

When i die i go to bi-topia. Hehe get it cuz im bi

[@zagobelim]

All things too obviously taken from real world cultures, mythologies etc in DnD are an abomination to me.