Roll for Lore

Grab your Elder Sign, because Sean and Jess are diving into the sleeping god at the bottom of the ocean: Cthulhu. This one goes way past the tentacle face. Sean breaks down what a Great Old One actually is (older, weirder, and far more indifferent than any demon), why the Elder Gods sealed these things away instead of killing them, and how Cthulhu ended up dreaming in the drowned city of R'lyeh.

Then it's on to the man himself, H.P. Lovecraft: the sickly Providence recluse who fired off a hundred thousand letters, ghostwrote Houdini's autobiography, and died broke and unknown in 1937 with no clue he'd become the backbone of modern horror. From there Sean traces fifty years of Cthulhu creeping through Dungeons & Dragons, from a throwaway line in the 1975 gate spell, to Rob Kuntz statting him up in Dragon #12, to the infamous Deities & Demigods printing that caught a cease and desist, all the way to his 2026 turn as a full Darklord in Ravenloft: The Horrors Within.

Plus the conversation nobody skips: Lovecraft's racism, and how you reckon with art that grew way bigger than the person who made it. Come for the squid god, stay for Jess deciding whether Cthulhu even belongs in D&D at all.

Want to pick our next topic or hang in the most active Discord in D&D? It's all on the Patreon, and it costs nothing dollars.

Cthulhu, Cthulhu D&D, Dungeons and Dragons, D&D lore, H.P. Lovecraft, Great Old Ones, Cthulhu Mythos, Call of Cthulhu, Deities and Demigods, Erol Otis, Rob Kuntz, Ravenloft, The Horrors Within, Darklord, Great Old One warlock, Elder Gods, R'lyeh, Arkham House, Gary Gygax, D&D history, tabletop RPG, TTRPG podcast
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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.
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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!!! Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

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.
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Grab a torch... it won't help, but grab one anyway. This week Sean and Jess drag Roll for Lore into the Shadowfell, Dungeons & Dragons' gloomy echo of the Material Plane, where the sky is a black vault, the food bleeds, and despair has actual game mechanics.

We trace the plane's whole history: how Jeff Grubb's 1987 Demiplane of Shadow footnote became 4th edition's Shadowfell, and how, in Forgotten Realms canon, the goddess Shar helped Cyric murder Mystra, kicked off the Spellplague, lost everything anyway, and built the plane as a consolation prize. Then it's a full 5e travel guide (Gloomwrought, Evernight, shadow crossings, and the despair rules), the truth about where Strahd and Barovia actually live inside the Domains of Dread, fifty years of shadow spells from the 1975 illusionist to shadow blade, and a bestiary of the plane's greatest nightmares: the shadar-kai, the Raven Queen, sorrowsworn, nightwalkers, banderhobbs, and Shimmergloom the shadow dragon.

Whether you're prepping a Curse of Strahd campaign or just here for deep D&D lore, this one's for you. Follow Roll for Lore wherever you get your podcasts.
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