50 Fun Facts About Dungeons & Dragons: Honor Among Thieves

Which Chris plays Edgin Darvis in Honor Among Thieves?

Chris Pine, the first actor cast, has said the film took its mix of swashbuckling and jokes partly from The Princess Bride.

In Honor Among Thieves, what class is Edgin Darvis?

Bard: fittingly, he pleads for parole by spinning his whole life story into a long, florid tale while the council fidgets.

Who plays the barbarian Holga Kilgore?

Michelle Rodriguez plays Holga, a warrior banished from her tribe for falling in love with an outsider, a halfling she has never quite got over.

Which actor plays the con artist Forge Fitzwilliam?

Hugh Grant plays the smiling villain, who ends the film locked in the prison his old partners escaped; one critic likened him to the actor's scheming turn in Paddington 2.

Who plays the paladin Xenk Yendar?

Regé-Jean Page, fresh from Bridgerton, plays Xenk as so flawlessly heroic that critics called him an NPC: he steers the party through one quest and leaves the moment it is done.

Who plays the sorcerer Simon Aumar?

Justice Smith worked with a choreographer to give every spell its own gesture, and folded real sign language for the spell's key word into the hand movements.

Who plays the druid Doric?

Sophia Lillis plays the shapeshifter whose owlbear form headlined the first trailer; the game's rules don't let druids become owlbears, and the directors allowed it because it looked cool.

In Honor Among Thieves, what race is Doric?

Tiefling: Doric was born to human parents but raised by wood elves, and she openly distrusts humans.

In Honor Among Thieves, Simon Aumar is descended from which famous wizard?

Elminster Aumar shares Simon's surname; he appears as a vision when Simon tries to master a magic relic, sneering that he is unworthy of the family name, until Simon punches him.

Honor Among Thieves is set in which Dungeons & Dragons campaign world?

Forgotten Realms: the villains and the red dragon come straight from the setting's published lore, and the game's own designers advised the directors during writing and on set.

Before Honor Among Thieves, directors Jonathan Goldstein and John Francis Daley made which 2018 comedy?

Game Night: one critic said the producers had borrowed a Marvel tactic by handing a fantasy blockbuster to comedy directors, who made it a snappy heist caper instead of an epic.

In which D&D order did Edgin serve before turning to theft?

The Harpers: Edgin left the secret order of do-gooders after his wife was killed by followers of a villain he had brought in; grief, and the poor pay, turned him to theft.

What is the name of the frozen prison where Edgin and Holga spend two years?

Revel's End: the game's publisher put the prison into a 2020 adventure book, three years before the film came out, to tie in with the world the film-makers were building.

Which city has Forge become Lord of when the heroes escape prison?

The previous Lord had been mysteriously incapacitated by Sofina.

What relic did Edgin try to steal to bring his wife back to life?

Tablet of Reawakening: the raid on a guarded stronghold to take it went wrong, and Edgin spent the next two years in prison for it.

In Honor Among Thieves, Forge's adviser Sofina secretly belongs to which faction?

The Red Wizards of Thay: Sofina uses Forge's rule as cover for her real master, an undead tyrant who wants the city's whole population for his army.

In Honor Among Thieves, which event do the heroes use as cover to rob Forge's vault?

The High Sun Games: Forge revived the old arena contest to win over the city, while Sofina wanted the crowd it would draw for a far darker purpose.

What is Doric's forest community fighting against when she is recruited?

Forced logging: Forge has sent loggers and soldiers ever deeper into the forest and branded the wood elves who resist as traitors.

As which creature does Doric first slip into Forge's castle to spy on him?

A fly: buzzing unseen through the castle, she learns how the vault is protected before she is sensed and has to flee, changing shape again and again.

In Honor Among Thieves, whose arcane seal protects Forge's vault?

Mordenkainen's: the archmage began as the game's co-creator Gary Gygax's own player character in the early 1970s, which is why so many of its spells still carry his name.

In Honor Among Thieves, which relic do the thieves seek to break the vault's seal?

Helm of Disjunction: it works only for a wearer who can attune to it, and the self-doubting Simon fails again and again until, mid-heist, he finally believes in himself.

How do the Honor Among Thieves crew learn where the relic is hidden?

By questioning resurrected corpses: Simon's token wakes the long-dead warriors of an old battlefield only long enough to answer a few questions, and it takes several graves to get a useful one.

In Honor Among Thieves, which lich turned his own people into an undead army?

Szass Tam: one of the setting's most powerful necromancers, he is the master Sofina serves, and he is still at large when the film ends.

In Honor Among Thieves, through which region does Xenk guide the thieves to a relic?

The Underdark: on the way in, a patrol of brain-shaped intellect devourers, which feed on clever minds, trots straight past the party without a second look.

In Honor Among Thieves, what is the name of the overweight red dragon the thieves escape from?

Themberchaud, borrowed from the game's lore, is too heavy to get airborne, so he belly-slides after the thieves and gobbles up the assassins chasing them; the directors wanted a dragon unlike any on film.

Who plays Holga's halfling ex-husband Marlamin?

Bradley Cooper had acted with co-director John Francis Daley on a short-lived 2005 sitcom; he shot the cameo against blue screen after filming had wrapped, with Daley reading the other part.

In Honor Among Thieves, which magic item do the thieves obtain from Holga's ex-husband Marlamin?

A teleportation staff: nobody realises what the old walking stick is until Simon spots it at the edge of a chasm, and its paired portals later empty Forge's treasure boat.

In Honor Among Thieves, how do the heroes scatter Forge's treasure over the city to empty the arena?

By hot-air balloon: the gold rains on the streets from the gaudy balloon that floats over the city all film, and the crowd pours out of the arena before the curse can take them.

What does Kira use to slip an anti-magic bracelet onto Sofina?

An invisibility pendant: a gift from Edgin and Holga when she was small, it lets Kira creep up unseen and snap the cuff on while Sofina is busy with the others.

In Honor Among Thieves' final battle, Simon counters which spell?

Time Stop: Simon, the sorcerer who doubts his own magic for most of the film, counters the spell, and that gives Kira the opening to clamp an anti-magic cuff on Sofina.

Which studio originally announced a D&D film in 2013, prompting a Hasbro lawsuit?

Warner Bros. Pictures: Hasbro sued within days, the two sides settled after a 2014 trial and agreed to make the film together, and the project still ended up at Paramount in 2017.

Which actor and avid D&D fan wrote his own script for the film in 2017?

Joe Manganiello co-wrote it with a college friend, adapting the first Dragonlance novel, and pitched it to the game's publisher; the film that finally got made used other writers and another setting.

Where did a chance chat with an agent land John Francis Daley the job of co-directing Honor Among Thieves?

A sports bar: he and his wife had gone to watch his beloved Chicago Cubs, and he let slip to the agent on the next stool that he and his directing partner had just left another film.

Which superhero film had Goldstein and Daley just left when Honor Among Thieves came up?

The Flash: they had spent over a year on the DC film, which had already gone through several directors, and their exit was not yet public when Daley let it slip to an agent.

Which major science-fiction and fantasy award did Honor Among Thieves win in 2024?

The Hugo Award: convention voters picked it for best long-form dramatic presentation ahead of Barbie and Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse, a year after it had disappointed at the box office.

In which country did filming of Honor Among Thieves begin in April 2021?

Iceland: none of the stars made the trip; a small crew filmed local stand-ins against the landscapes, the first footage shot for the film.

In which city was most of Honor Among Thieves filmed?

Belfast: on day one, instead of rehearsing, the directors had the cast play a three-hour game of D&D in character, run over Zoom by a Dungeon Master from the game's publisher.

Who composed the score for Honor Among Thieves?

Lorne Balfe said he had played the game as a child, so he wanted in the moment he heard a film was being made; he later wrote an album of tavern songs with the directors.

Which band released the single "Wings of Time" for Honor Among Thieves?

Tame Impala: Kevin Parker called it a chance to indulge his love of fantasy prog rock, and wrote the song over two nights in a rented Spanish villa that felt like a castle.

At their parole hearing in Honor Among Thieves, which winged council member do Edgin and Holga ride out of the window?

Jarnathan, a bird-like aarakocra, is tackled through the window as their way down; at the end of the film Forge tries the same leap and hits a window that has since been bricked up.

Which Led Zeppelin song drives the first trailer for Honor Among Thieves?

Whole Lotta Love: the trailer was unveiled at San Diego Comic-Con in July 2022 and showed the film would play as a comic heist full of monsters, not a solemn epic.

At which festival did Honor Among Thieves have its world premiere?

South by Southwest: it opened the Austin festival, where the directors had been twice before, once as writers and once as producers; they called it 'the quintessential South By film', big but a little subversive.

Roughly what was the production budget of Honor Among Thieves?

$150 million, before marketing: the film opened at No. 1 in North America and still fell short, taking about $208 million worldwide.

Which film replaced Honor Among Thieves at No. 1 in North America a week after it opened?

The Super Mario Bros. Movie opened five days later and swept up the family audience; one analysis also blamed thin marketing and a fan boycott of the game's publisher over a licensing row.

In the arena of Honor Among Thieves, the treasure chest that attacks Holga is really which classic monster?

A mimic: the shapeshifter has posed as chests and doors since the game's 1977 Monster Manual, and it glues itself to whatever touches it, so punching one only makes things worse.

Which earlier D&D production's heroes compete in Honor Among Thieves' arena?

The 1983 animated series: Hank, Eric, Diana, Presto, Sheila and Bobby appear in their cartoon costumes as another party trapped in Forge's maze, and at one point are found stuck in a cage.

Which musician cameos in Honor Among Thieves as spectator Kimathi Stormhollow?

Tom Morello: the Rage Against the Machine guitarist is a long-time player of the game, and Kimathi Stormhollow is the dwarf cleric he plays in a friend's home campaign.

To get out of the arena maze in Honor Among Thieves, the heroes deliberately dive into which monster?

A gelatinous cube: its acid would normally dissolve them, but Doric shapeshifts her way out of the transparent block and hauls the others free, leaving the beast that was chasing them behind.

Which Oscar winner played the villain of the first Dungeons & Dragons film, the 2000 flop that Honor Among Thieves ignores?

Jeremy Irons played the scheming mage Profion in a film that failed with critics and at the box office; two cheaper sequels followed, and the 2023 film ignores all three.

In 2026, Jonathan Goldstein said what might stop the written sequel to Honor Among Thieves being filmed?

Financial reasons: he said he and Daley had been hired to write it, but 'they're expensive movies to make'; Paramount's chief had said in 2023 that a sequel would need a smaller budget.