Marathon, Broadway, and Catacomb: Upcoming D&D Products?

Toriel · Nov 21, 2017

It does make me think of Planescape with roads that lead everywhere. Maybe some sort of supplement for it and an adventure?

Sacrosanct · Nov 21, 2017

Marathon: a book with the Warlord class and it's 25 subclasses, as well as revisions to the fighter giving them oodles of out of combat hard baked in features like underwater basketweaving, but taking away those two extra feats
Catacomb: A monster manual where every monster takes up 6 pages because each one has a zillion abilities listed out in detail to make them not boring. A whole lot of cut and pasting, as each entry has the full description of each power (each monster with, say, fireball for example will have the full spell description in that entry)
Boadway: One giant apology book from the DEVs saying how sorry they are for being lazy and incompetent.

There, now EVERYONE CAN BE HAPPY!

Parmandur · Nov 21, 2017

ro said:
I imagine that the page counts are not the actual counts. 256 and 192 are very computer-y numbers (multiples of 64). They are probably placeholders representing approximate or relative length.

Um, no: books are bound in 32 page folios, for various boring technical reasons. You will find that most any books will be a power of 2.

pukunui · Nov 21, 2017

Juomari Veren said:
I'm fairly certain Labyrinth turned into Tales from the Yawning Portal actually, and Dust was Tomb of Annihilation (Because dust is what a sphere of annihilation turns you into). Midway was most definitely Xanathar's Guide (a lot of the surveys from the UAs leading up to it were titled MidwaysurveyX on release in the url and then quickly changed after a day, like this happened multiple times), but I've no idea what Cloak and Dagger are or were - where did those ones come from? They may be new ones as well.

Check out post #3.

As for Undermountain: As I've said elsewhere, since rumor has it the D&D movie is going to be based around Waterdeep/Undermountain, my guess is they're holding this adventure back so they can release it with the movie.

Parmandur · Nov 21, 2017

Mercurius said:
Didn't Mearls say there were four books coming out in 2018? Or is the fourth product the dice?

Mearls did hint at that. Interesting hypothesis, though: they released a Magic: the he Gathering level 4 5E module at the latest PAX Con, and it states on the back that more material set in the world's of Magic: the Gathering can be found at the DMs Guild, which is not currently the case. Maybe the WotC Magic team will be releasing an actual 5E conversion product in 2018, and that was the fourth product Mearls waffled about in that panel.

Parmandur · Nov 21, 2017

Toriel said:
It does make me think of Planescape with roads that lead everywhere. Maybe some sort of supplement for it and an adventure?

That could be: Broadway being the March of the Modrons (since they keep bringing that up), with a Manual of the Planes in November? They have been testing an awfully large amount of Planar material in UA recently.

Parmandur · Nov 21, 2017

With the caveat that the names probably say nothing about the actual products, the Broadway Marathon in New York City is a pretty big deal. And Catacomb is pretty generic for a D&D codeword.

pukunui · Nov 21, 2017

So far only Dust and Cloak have provided hints as to their subject matter (tombs are dusty; vampires wear cloaks). Dagger was something of a red herring. Midway didn't really mean anything, unless Xanathar's is truly the midway point of 5e's lifespan or something.

They could just be toying with us to generate speculation with regards to these new ones.

Quickleaf · Nov 21, 2017

pukunui said:
So far only Dust and Cloak have provided hints as to their subject matter (tombs are dusty; vampires wear cloaks). Dagger was something of a red herring. Midway didn't really mean anything, unless Xanathar's is truly the midway point of 5e's lifespan or something.

They could just be toying with us to generate speculation with regards to these new ones.

"Dagger" was a reference to MacBeth ("is this a dagger I see before me"), building on Chris Perkins' hints about "Shakespeare with giants." >Storm King's Thunder

"Cloak" may have been a reference to the classic I6 Strahd cover illustration by Clyde Caldwell. >Curse of Strahd

"Dust" was a reference to "ashes to ashes, dust to dust", reflecting the Death Curse of Acererack. >Tomb of Annihilation.

"Midway" was included in many titles/URLs of the playtest surveys for Unearthed Arcana. >Xanathar's Guide to Everything

For rampant speculation about "Marathon"...

A marathon is 26.219 miles, which is close to the old TSR product codes for several Planescape products, such as TSR2620 Planewalker's Handbook, TSR2621 Hellbound, TSR2628 Great Modron March, TSR2629 Faction War, TSR2631 Dead Gods, etc.
A marathon is about 26 miles, and the Dungeon-ranked 26th best adventure of all time was Greyhawk's City of Skulls...which builds on some of Mike Mearls' "Greyhawk" rules & Chris Perkins' thoughts on leveraging Iuz for a theoretical Greyhawk release.
Marathon-gaming refers to long D&D sessions, like the 24 Hours of D&D events for Extralife.org they've been running since 2014. Maybe others more well informed could speculate about stories unique to Extralife.org.
The word marathon comes from the fabled run of the Greek soldier Pheidippides, a messenger from the Battle of Marathon to Athens, who reported the victory. So that could be the premise for a war-based adventure.
May 2018 release & 192 page count suggest "Marathon" may be a release with less overhead than longer new hardback adventures, similar to Tales From the Yawning Portal. Perhaps some kind of competition loosely may connect the individual adventures, like a marathon connecting milestones.

Sacrosanct · Nov 21, 2017

Quickleaf said:
For rampant speculation about "Marathon"...

A marathon is 26.219 miles, which is close to the old TSR product codes for several Planescape products, such as TSR2621 Hellbound, TSR2628 Great Modron March, TSR2631 Dead Gods, etc.

A marathon is about 26 miles, and the Dungeon-ranked 26th best adventure of all time was Greyhawk's City of Skulls...which builds on some of Mike Mearls' "Greyhawk" rules & Chris Perkins' thoughts on leveraging Iuz for a theoretical Greyhawk release.

Marathon-gaming refers to long D&D sessions, like the 24 Hours of D&D events for Extralife.org they've been running since 2014. Maybe others more well informed could speculate about stories unique to Extralife.org.

The word marathon comes from the fabled run of the Greek soldier Pheidippides, a messenger from the Battle of Marathon to Athens, who reported the victory. So that could be the premise for a war-based adventure.

May 2018 release & 192 page count suggest "Marathon" may be a release with less overhead than longer new hardback adventures, similar to Tales From the Yawning Portal. Perhaps some kind of competition loosely may connect the individual adventures, like a marathon connecting milestones.

I think the proof is obvious.

A marathon is 26.219 miles, like you say. On the left of the decimal is 26: 2+6 = 8. And the right side is 219: 2+1+9 = 12.
On the left side of the book is the date, and what is the last digit for the year? That's right, 8. On the right side is the page count: 192 pages. 1+9+2 = 12.

Coincidence? I think not. And what is 8+12? 20 of course. Divide 20 by the 2 sides, and you get 10. How many letters are in "Planescape"? :O

It can't be more obvious.

Marathon, Broadway, and Catacomb: Upcoming D&D Products?

Toriel

Explorer

Sacrosanct

Legend

Parmandur

Book-Friend

pukunui

Legend

Parmandur

Book-Friend

Parmandur

Book-Friend

Parmandur

Book-Friend

pukunui

Legend

Quickleaf

Legend

Sacrosanct

Legend

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