D&D 5E March's D&D Book To Be Announced On January 9th

A mysterious entry has appeared on Amazon! With a product title of "Dungeons & Dragons March Release Book (Title announced January 9th)" and a release date of March 17th, 2020, this $49.95 hardcover release will be revealed in under a week!

The description reads "Your first look at the next D&D title comes on January 9th! Keep an eye on wherever you get your D&D news for a preview of the book."

Could there be a clue in the dice being released on the same day? Laeral Silverhand's Explorer's Kit is described as "Dice and miscellany for the world's greatest roleplaying game" for $29.99. We'll find out on Thursday!

Who's Laeral Silverhand? She's a prolific creator of magic items from Waterdeep, and one of the most powerful wizards in the Forgotten Realms. She's one of the Seven Sisters, introduced in 1987's Forgotten Realms boxed set, although Laeral herself wasn't described in that product. Ed Greenwood'sThe Seven Sisters supplement fully detailed them in 1995. Laeral and Khlben 'Blackstaff' Arunsun led a group called the Moonstars. In 5th edition, she appears in Waterdeep: Dragon Heist.

 

[Azzy]

I just clicked on the review from Strange Assembly, which says it's more than 300 pages long. I'll take the review over the page count on Amazon, one of those two sources cares a lot more about the accuracy of that page count. I just can't see a reviewer saying it clocks in at over 300 pages when it's actually only 256.

320, by my count.

 

[dave2008]

ohhhhhhh....I thought we were talking about the March release being bigger than the Eberron book.

Both, but that is a good point. I am not sure where @gyor got that this book is bigger. The amazon page definitely says 1.2 pounds for the new book. However, the page count listed for DotMM on Amazon appears to be wrong (256 pages instead of 320) so this could too.

 

[Parmandur]

According to amazon it's 256 pages. I'll check my copy later.

I can verify from my own copy that it is 320 pages.

 

[JeffB]

You (collectively) have convinced me that it is a compendium of adventures written by live-play celebrities and DMs guild writers, set in the 'Realms, connected by an overarching plot involving Silverhand.

I won't think it's anything else until the announcement drops.

If this is the case, I will be sad. So I hope you are wrong

 

[Parmandur]

When I look at it on amazon DotMM it is listed like:
View attachment 117266

Wow, that's so weird: the copy on my shelf is definitely 320 pages.

Takeaway: take the Amazon dimensions with a grain of salt.

 

[Fenris-77]

Alrighty then, we've established that Amazon is an evil corporation who fudges page count on books to trigger anxiety in online discussion forums. Now, back to our regularly scheduled programming...

 

[darjr]

And it’s already 2576 sales rank on Amazon.

 

[JPL]

I'll guess it's a grand tour of the Realms, where we get our first official visit in many years to Kara-Tur, Al-Quadim, Maztica, and maybe some new lands (Fantasy India? Fantasy Stone Age?). Almost certainly a bunch of linked adventures rather than a pure gazetteer.

 

[OB1]

You (collectively) have convinced me that it is a compendium of adventures written by live-play celebrities and DMs guild writers, set in the 'Realms, connected by an overarching plot involving Silverhand.

I won't think it's anything else until the announcement drops.

I'll guess it's a grand tour of the Realms, where we get our first official visit in many years to Kara-Tur, Al-Quadim, Maztica, and maybe some new lands (Fantasy India? Fantasy Stone Age?). Almost certainly a bunch of linked adventures rather than a pure gazetteer.

I'm guessing this is right, only I'll add that I'd expect 1/3 to 1/2 of the book to be dedicated to new monsters, ala VGtM or MToF. And if there is an overarching plot it will be very lite, similar to DotMM or TftYP.

 

[JPL]

Take into account that WOTC has admitted that they maybe dropped the ball recently with "Fantasy Africa," and vowed to do better in the future when dealing with non-Western cultures. I kinda like a "Wakanda" approach to these lands . . . just because the real-world equivalents got colonized / civilized / conquered doesn't mean that's how it plays out in Faerun.