D&D 5E Clues in the Core Rulebooks

[Bad Fox]

When Chris Perkins did a Reddit AMA a couple weeks back, one comment that stood out for me was this:

"Curse of Strahd represents an acknowledge of D&D's greater multiverse. We will continue to tell stories in FR, but CoS is a shot off the bow of everyone who professed that Wizards would never go back to its other classic settings. We foreshadowed the coming of CoS in the core rulebooks. The core rulebooks contain lots of clues about the stories we intend to tell going forward."

That's a pretty unambiguous statement about their future plans, and I've been running through the core rulebooks over the past week thinking about this. What clues are hiding in there?

I feel like the references to Sigil would catch most people's attention pretty quickly, but at least one other reference jumps out at me.

The Isle of Dread. It's brought up at least twice in the DM's Guide, and has been moved from the Mystara campaign setting over to the main D&D planar multiverse. Kind of an oddly specific locale to mention as being located in the plane of water - especially when (to the best of my knowledge), there's no history of it having been there.

Perhaps a clue at the first wilderness-based hex-crawl adventure? It's food for wild speculation, at least!

What other potential clues stood out for you in the core books?

 

[Ralif Redhammer]

I certainly didn’t notice it until after the fact, but there’s a reference to the drow House Mizzrym in the MM, which is the house of Ilvara in Out of the Abyss.

Knowing that they’ve been working on psionics, and wondering where it will come up, I’m going to go look at the various psychic creatures to see if there’s anything there.

 

[ProphetSword]

There are a couple of references to Dragonlance in the PHB. I hope they're planning to do something with that.

 

[MechaPilot]

When Chris Perkins did a Reddit AMA a couple weeks back, one comment that stood out for me was this:

"Curse of Strahd represents an acknowledge of D&D's greater multiverse. We will continue to tell stories in FR, but CoS is a shot off the bow of everyone who professed that Wizards would never go back to its other classic settings. We foreshadowed the coming of CoS in the core rulebooks. The core rulebooks contain lots of clues about the stories we intend to tell going forward."

There are several clues in the books, but I have to point out that this "shot off the bow" misses by a country mile. WotC is not going back to D&D's classic settings, not in the way that we've seen it happen over the past few editions. Adventures will happen in other settings. Yes. But no setting books or boxed sets a la 2e, 3e, or 4e. And these adventures in other settings will be, by all appearances, simple one-offs among a sea of FR adventures. If WotC was aiming just off my bow, they shouldn't have shot at the sun and patted themselves on the back for it.

 

[CapnZapp]

There are several clues in the books

Since this thread is about the clues and not the bow shots: what clues have you found?

 

[pukunui]

The MM spends quite a bit of time talking about the giants' ordning and all that. Could be a clue pertaining to the hinted-at "Shakespearian giants" adventure.

 

[MechaPilot]

Since this thread is about the clues and not the bow shots: what clues have you found?

Some of the references were already mentioned in several places, such as the introduction involving Castle Ravenloft, Strahd being mentioned in the MM's Vampire entry, etc. But, there's also the use of a Dragonlance character to illustrate the background and personality section of character creation in the PHB. I don't have my PHB handy, but you can find it on page 33 of the basic PDF. I'd have to grab my books to be able to cite the other ones I've found. I'll likely chime in again later with a few of those.

 

[Tony Vargas]

The Isle of Dread. It's brought up at least twice in the DM's Guide, and has been moved from the Mystara campaign setting over to the main D&D planar multiverse. Kind of an oddly specific locale to mention as being located in the plane of water - especially when (to the best of my knowledge), there's no history of it having been there.

It had been moved to the Feywild, though. I guess there's a stop there in the regular island-hopper service from Mystara to The Elemental Plane of Water.

 

[redkobold]

The MM spends quite a bit of time talking about the giants' ordning and all that. Could be a clue pertaining to the hinted-at "Shakespearian giants" adventure.

When I was at GenCon 2014, I met with a Dungeons and Dragons licensee (whose company and name I will withhold) who was talking about a future Hall of the Fire Giant King remake/themed adventure or product. I think that fits with the cover of the PHB as well as the details included in the MM. It would also be an opportunity for added rules concerning high level play.

 

[doctorhook]

Well, there's that one Eberron clue in the Monster Manual. You know, the one where they included a picture of House Orien's crest (which depicts a unicorn) in the "pegasus" entry, with some dialog about how great it is to have a pegasus as a symbol (which is clearly a unicorn).

Lazy.