D&D 5E Iggwilv/Tasha To Join Volo, Xanathar, and Mordenkainen? [UPDATED!]

Is WotC teasing a new announcement? There have been a few D&D books named after famous personalities from the game's extensive lore - Vole's Guide to Monsters, Xanathar's Guide to Everything, Mordenkainen's Tome of Foes. It looks possible that the next such personality might be Tasha of Tasha's Hideous Laughter fame -- which was an adventuring alias of the Greyhawk villain Iggwilv.

UPDATE -- A page has appeared on Amazon entitled Dungeons & Dragons November Title (Announced August 24). It's a hardcover, $49.95, November 17th release date.

On their Discord channel, WotC posted a short audio clip; it features some female-sounding voices laughing, and it is titled "Feather and Tart". It also has a metadata info which says August 24th, 2020, which is Monday. But in addition to that, a WoTC staff member on Reddit's avatar was changed to an image of Iggwilv.

Iggwilv was an evil magic-user, a villain created by Gary Gygax. When adventuring with the Company of Seven, she used the alias Tasha. The lore has it that the witch Baba Yaga adopted her as a child and named her Natasha, and she soon became Natasha the Dark (Baba Yaga also adopted Elena the Fair).

Iggwilv has two forms, one old and one young. You can read more about the character on Wikipedia.


What does seem clear is that WotC is teasing an impending announcement! I assume that the announcement they are teasing will be the announcement of an upcoming announcement, or I'll be disappointed.

 

[Parmandur]

Oh, bless your heart: nothing short than a verbatim reprint of the original Folio would appease most of those fans. There were fits raised that Saltmarsh dared to mention dragonborn and have a tiefling NPC. Greyhawk is second only to Dark Sun in its fandom actively resisting any addition, change, or retcon to the setting as a result of edition changes.

WotC said that Ghosts of Saltmarsh was well received, so that seems to be the model they would use for more Greyhawk.

 

[Remathilis]

That's why I'm assuming there will be some sort of focus on magic, which Iggwilv is of course an expert in...

Magic and "lost" knowledge to explain the variant race and class stuff.

 

[Demetrios1453]

Oh, bless your heart: nothing short than a verbatim reprint of the original Folio would appease most of those fans. There were fits raised that Saltmarsh dared to mention dragonborn and have a tiefling NPC. Greyhawk is second only to Dark Sun in its fandom actively resisting any addition, change, or retcon to the setting as a result of edition changes.

I've said it before, but Greyhawk fans who raise fits against tieflings are ignoring the logic of the situation in the setting. We know, canonically, that there have been fiend/humanoid pairings (and cambion offspring) in the Empire of Iuz and the Great Kingdom for decades, if not longer. Tieflings are the inevitable result of that.

 

[Parmandur]

I've said it before, but Greyhawk fans who raise fits against tieflings are ignoring the logic of the situation in the setting. We know, canonically, that there have been fiend/humanoid pairings (and cambion offspring) in the Empire of Iuz and the Great Kingdom for decades, if not longer. Tieflings are the inevitable result of that.

And lo, that's how it's presented in Ghosts of Saltmarsh...

In my Greyhawk, the Horned Society is a aristocratic Tiefling oligarchy.

 

[Remathilis]

WotC said that Ghosts of Saltmarsh was well received, so that seems to be the model they would use for more Greyhawk.

Honestly, I loved the Saltmarsh part of GoS. I think it was a great way to capture the feel of the setting while keeping it compatible with the current edition.

I've said it before, but Greyhawk fans who raise fits against tieflings are ignoring the logic of the situation in the setting. We know, canonically, that there have been fiend/humanoid pairings (and cambion offspring) in the Empire of Iuz and the Great Kingdom for decades, if not longer. Tieflings are the inevitable result of that.

I mean, it seems like it would be a natural fit (and with dragonborn; Oerth is home to hundreds of sentient bipedal races, what's one more) but there was a lot of "That's not how it was in Garweeze Wurld, quit trying to make it Furgotten Realmz!" which to me is the biggest eye-roller I can fathom.

 

[Demetrios1453]

I mean, it seems like it would be a natural fit (and with dragonborn; Oerth is home to hundreds of sentient bipedal races, what's one more) but there was a lot of "That's not how it was in Garweeze Wurld, quit trying to make it Furgotten Realmz!" which to me is the biggest eye-roller I can fathom.

I had a Greyhawk fan argue on a thread here, apparently with a straight face, that, yes, fiendish descendents like tieflings did likely exist in Greyhawk, and they could very well have the same stats as tieflings, but they couldn't be called tieflings, since those don't exist in Greyhawk.

 

[dave2008]

Okay so let’s say that Ig is Tasha... since Tasha was part of the big 7 group in Greyhawk (orth) then what does it mean for the setting that she was evil!?!?

That is explained in the lore. She hid the fact she was evil and even her true power. She essential used the time to spy on them and learn / steal from them

 

[Mistwell]

If you consider the truth to be dismissive, isn't that a personal problem? I like a lot of the Greyhawk characters, but he is right it hasn't been relevant in 30 years.

Sure but that's not the dismissive part.

 

[Weiley31]

Tomorrow we are gonna find out why it is?

 

[Mistwell]

If you think me calling someone a grognard is a dire insult in the same post where I namecheck Ghostwalk of all things, then you're very much misreading the tone of my posts.

Then you're very much misreading the tone you're coming across with in your posts. Stop with the grognard dismissive comments if that isn't your intent. They're not relevant to my argument and serve only as a means of you saying my comment isn't to be taken seriously.