D&D 5E More Details About Laeral Silverhand’s Explorer’s Kit

This press release just dropped into my inbox. Laeral Silverhand Explorer’s Kit contains dice, cards, and a map. This comes out on the same day as the as-yet unnamed D&D hardcover on March 17th, whose identity will be revealed on Thursday.

Explore the realms! Wizards of the Coast once again is presenting new dice and miscellany for the world’s greatest roleplaying game. Forgotten Realms Laeral Silverhand Explorer’s Kit builds on the success of Waterdeep: Dragon Heist. Forgotten Realms Laeral Silverhand Explorer’s Kit will be available in stores everywhere on March 17, 2020!

Let Laeral Silverhand – Open Lord of Waterdeep, centuries-old archmage, and daughter of the goddess of magic – guide you on your path to adventure. The new kit includes eleven dice placed in a durable, felt-lined box that functions as two dice trays. Fans can also enjoy the twenty illustrated, double-sided cards detailing Laeral’s expert insights on key characters, locations, and lore from across the Forgotten RealmsTM and a foldout double-sided map of the Sword Coast and city of Waterdeep.

• Eleven dice (two d20s, one d12, two d10s, one d8, four d6s, one d4).
• Twenty illustrated, double-sided cards detailing Laeral's expert insights on key characters, locations, and lore from across the Forgotten Realms.
• A durable, felt-lined box that functions as two dice trays.
• Foldout double-sided map of the Sword Coast and the city of Waterdeep.

 

[Nebulous]

I think it may have to do with the Sword Coast being largely the same in every edition of the game. Who runs what city or country changes, but no nations got dropped into the ocean or transported to another world or whatever. Almost every edition has FR fans who prefer to pretend it's still their era of FR.

In my Realms, there are still big sinkholes covering many miles of terrain that act as half-way points to the underdark, and earth motes, and tons of Genasi in Calimshan, and when this campaign ends, we will jump forward a bit between campaigns (if we do end up doing another FR campaign), and things will be different, but it still won't be the 5e Realms.

The PCs are on a path to take down Netheril, and bring back several gods who are currently running around Abier in "mortal" bodies as an adventuring party that don't know who they really are, and bring Lantan back to Toril, and some other stuff.

The adventuring gods are a young female sorcerer who seems to channel raw magic (Mystra), her adoptive father who is a wizard and scribe (Azuth), a paladin of The Peace (an oath basically dedicated to keeping the peace and protecting stuff and adjudicating things impartially, Helm), a young elven ranger known for helping travellers in need (Shaundakul), and a friendly but lethal young thief with a penchant for leaving wealthy and powerful corpses behind him (Mask, who has been influenced by his chosen toward a focus on "just" assassination, and who may be a patron of "avenger" types when they return to Faerun).

So, while I'd love a subclass for Hathran from Rashemen, I'm not exactly chomping at the bit to find out what they come up with for the current state of Rashemen.

The adventuring gods is a cool idea, reminds me of the old trilogy where Cyric was turned into a god and Myrkul was running around. I don't really use the setting much more than a convenient backdrop for the written adventures. Like I'm running Lost Mine and Essentials now, but the whole thing will take place in that little sliver of the Realms between Neverwinter and Kryptgarden Forest.

 

[Parmandur]

I think it may have to do with the Sword Coast being largely the same in every edition of the game. Who runs what city or country changes, but no nations got dropped into the ocean or transported to another world or whatever. Almost every edition has FR fans who prefer to pretend it's still their era of FR.

In my Realms, there are still big sinkholes covering many miles of terrain that act as half-way points to the underdark, and earth motes, and tons of Genasi in Calimshan, and when this campaign ends, we will jump forward a bit between campaigns (if we do end up doing another FR campaign), and things will be different, but it still won't be the 5e Realms.

The PCs are on a path to take down Netheril, and bring back several gods who are currently running around Abier in "mortal" bodies as an adventuring party that don't know who they really are, and bring Lantan back to Toril, and some other stuff.

The adventuring gods are a young female sorcerer who seems to channel raw magic (Mystra), her adoptive father who is a wizard and scribe (Azuth), a paladin of The Peace (an oath basically dedicated to keeping the peace and protecting stuff and adjudicating things impartially, Helm), a young elven ranger known for helping travellers in need (Shaundakul), and a friendly but lethal young thief with a penchant for leaving wealthy and powerful corpses behind him (Mask, who has been influenced by his chosen toward a focus on "just" assassination, and who may be a patron of "avenger" types when they return to Faerun).

So, while I'd love a subclass for Hathran from Rashemen, I'm not exactly chomping at the bit to find out what they come up with for the current state of Rashemen.

All of this, plus the (fictional) fact that the Sword Coast is larger than Europe. It is a big old generic fantasy sandbox that fits well with products that can be retooled to homebrew or other D&D settings.

 

[doctorbadwolf]

The adventuring gods is a cool idea, reminds me of the old trilogy where Cyric was turned into a god and Myrkul was running around. I don't really use the setting much more than a convenient backdrop for the written adventures. Like I'm running Lost Mine and Essentials now, but the whole thing will take place in that little sliver of the Realms between Neverwinter and Kryptgarden Forest.

Thanks!

It’s gonna be really fun to run that adventure.

 

[TheSword]

This is the Avernus dice set re-skinned for the sword coast. To be fair I have that set, it’s quite quirky, has a nice dice tray, cool dice and some maps and index cards to represent character knowledge. I like it to be honest and not excessive in pricing.

The sword coast is a good, generic location that can be dropped into most campaigns, that’s why it gets used. There’s no point setting a campaign in the island desert of half dragon-giants fighting against the undead hordes of the far realm psurlons if it is only going to be If use in the most corner case of campaigns.

 

[doctorbadwolf]

This is the Avernus dice set re-skinned for the sword coast. To be fair I have that set, it’s quite quirky, has a nice dice tray, cool dice and some maps and index cards to represent character knowledge. I like it to be honest and not excessive in pricing.

The sword coast is a good, generic location that can be dropped into most campaigns, that’s why it gets used. There’s no point setting a campaign in the island desert of half dragon-giants fighting against the undead hordes of the far realm psurlons if it is only going to be If use in the most corner case of campaigns.

I mean, plenty of places that haven’t been explored in 5e can easily be used in other settings. Rashamen is pretty easy to drop into most worlds.

 

[TheSword]

I mean, plenty of places that haven’t been explored in 5e can easily be used in other settings. Rashamen is pretty easy to drop into most worlds.

A barbarian land of warrior lodges and Witch Circles under the ever-present threat of invasion from Evil Mages themed to the Schools of Magic isn’t really generic. It’s cool, but it is distinctly Rashamen.

 

[R_J_K75]

....plenty of places that haven’t been explored in 5e can easily be used in other settings.

I'd argue, although some easier than others, most anything from any campaign setting can be inserted into any other campaign setting with a little work.

 

[Urriak Uruk]

"Across the Forgotten Realms" not "Across the Swordcoast".

And did anyone notice the card behind Laeral? I think it looks like a Shifter. Pointy ears, but a vaguely animal nose.

Map is the Sword Coast, back is Waterdeep. Maybe some of the cards will show the Underdark or Chult, but all the art seems reused to me. That new piece is probably an NPC in the new book.

The person looks a lot like a Firbolg to me.

 

[doctorbadwolf]

A barbarian land of warrior lodges and Witch Circles under the ever-present threat of invasion from Evil Mages themed to the Schools of Magic isn’t really generic. It’s cool, but it is distinctly Rashamen.

Seriously? Lol okay. It’s trivially easy to slip into pretty much any world.

 

[Parmandur]

I mean, plenty of places that haven’t been explored in 5e can easily be used in other settings. Rashamen is pretty easy to drop into most worlds.

I thought no that's true: the Sword Coast is ideal for WotC purposes, as you point out, for relatively unchanged geopolitics and the Points of Light setup: lots of isolated communities with weird monsters over the hills.

I think their strategy is also newb-friendly: a consistent starting region that a newcomer can feel comfortable with handling (though, again, larger than Europe, not a small sandbox to play in).