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]

From the DMsGuild FAAW:

"I don’t see anything that would stop me from publishing a Greyhawk or Zendikar or Dark Sun product on DMs Guild. Can I do that?

For now, DMs Guild is limited to the Forgotten Realms, Ravenloft, Eberron, Ravnica, and Theros settings only, although you can also publish anything for 5th Edition that (i) is generic enough to be used in a permitted setting without effort and (ii) doesn’t explicitly use anything related to another official Wizards setting.

For example, you can mention Forgotten Realms deities such as Azuth or Mystra, but you can’t mention Boccob, Lunitari, or any other deity from another official D&D setting that hasn't been permitted here. Some deities or characters (such as Vecna or Lord Soth) appear in several settings; they can be mentioned only in the context of approved settings."

That being said, the DMsGuild does have subsections for user-created Greyhawk and Dragonlance content (but not other unapproved Settings), so there are suspicions about their long-term plans to release GH and DL at least...

 

[dave2008]

So, just in case I've missed the boat on this, I want to confirm.

The issue isn't Iggwilv's lore, everyone agrees on everything attributed to her.

The issue isn't Tasha's Lore, whoever she was, I guess a member of this Seven group, everyone agrees on that.


The only issue is that there is lore that some people don't think is canon that says Iggwilv took on the appearance of Tasha, and they were secretly the same person.

That's it. That is the only problem people have with the situation.

Not exactly. The issue is weather or not it is canon that Natasha = Tasha = Iggwilv is "canon" in 5e. This relationship was first described in a Dragon Mag article in 3.5e (not canon) and a 3.5e Adventure (canon). Tasha = Iggwilv was canon in 4e (Dragon articles were canon). Now, people can and are choosing to not accept it, but that doesn't change the facts. I certainly don't put any stock in "canon," but it is clear what was considered canon by WotC in 3.5e and 4e. We just don't know what the 5e situation is. As I mentioned i don't really care, but it I do enjoy discussing it and see what others think.

 

[dave2008]

LOL....the whole point was to be humorous ...hence the emoji's and the story about the older wargamer defining the term in a way that would never apply to me.
My serious posts rarely include Floppy Disc and Joystick emojis.
Yeah....that joke, or rather my Performance Roll was a Natural 1

I will admit, you were using the word grognard in a way like it was a "Killing Word"

The dismissive intent is clear. Much clearer then my joke it seems.

Who is directing ad hominem attacks towards Erik Mona?

@Mistwell sort of - dismissing Eric's work as non-canon. At least as related to Natasha = Tasha = Iggwilv

 

[Dausuul]

I'm thinking a player / DM book like Xanthar's

It does seem about time for one, most likely planar-themed.

 

[Maxperson]

It's more than a little funny that there is a debate about whether Tasha = Iggwilv in the lore, when WotC is likely going to use Tasha in the title for the primary reason that Tasha is a way easier word to pronounce than "Iggwilv."

Anyway, if Tasha/Iggwilv really is on the title of this book, that's awesome! Very much an iconic character of Greyhawk and old D&D in general, and I'd be excited to see if this is more of a monster book, character options book, setting material or something in-between.

I'd guess it's some blur of them all, because of the gem dragons likely being here (meaning some new psionic options) plus the many many new character options being tested in UA. Be great to have some more Planescape/Spelljammer stuff but this doesn't really feel like it's going to be a new Manual of the Planes.

But I don't need to speculate much, we'll get the actually announcement tomorrow! No announcement of the announcement nonsense...

If you're going to go with an evil iconic Greyhawk character, go with Vecna. He's a god of secrets and it would be awesome to see him with a book like this. Especially if they include some "author" narration.

 

[Remathilis]

If you're going to go with an evil iconic Greyhawk character, go with Vecna. He's a god of secrets and it would be awesome to see him with a book like this. Especially if they include some "author" narration.

Yes, but Tasha gives them something Vecna doesn't; a powerful FEMALE wizard with the pedigree of other "spell-naming" wizards in the PHB. Tasha is, if I recall correctly, the only female named wizard to have a named spell on the core books.

Being able to tie her back to Iggliv is further icing due to her past as the Demonomicon author.

So WotC probably chose her to get a somewhat iconic female character as the namesake character who is easily on par with their other namesake character authors. Diversity and all that.

 

[Mistwell]

@Mistwell sort of - dismissing Eric's work as non-canon. At least as related to Natasha = Tasha = Iggwilv

I have no issues with Mona I just have never seen anyone describe it as canon and official content. They do all sorts of crazy stuff with Dragon magazine that isn't intended as official but just something fun to experiment with.

 

[Chaosmancer]

Not exactly. The issue is weather or not it is canon that Natasha = Tasha = Iggwilv is "canon" in 5e. This relationship was first described in a Dragon Mag article in 3.5e (not canon) and a 3.5e Adventure (canon). Tasha = Iggwilv was canon in 4e (Dragon articles were canon). Now, people can and are choosing to not accept it, but that doesn't change the facts. I certainly don't put any stock in "canon," but it is clear what was considered canon by WotC in 3.5e and 4e. We just don't know what the 5e situation is. As I mentioned i don't really care, but it I do enjoy discussing it and see what others think.

Pardon my ignorance, but isn't there a general rule of thumb that things are considered canon unless otherwise stated?

So if it was canon in 3.5, and canon in 4e (and not a cosmoslogical shift, just a person's identity) then shouldn't it default to still being canon?

To take a name I know nothing about, but in FR there is a guy named "Mert the Moneylender" correct? He hasn't been mentioned in 5e to my knowledge, but everything about him from older editions should still be canon unless directly stated otherwise, by my understanding.

 

[Parmandur]

Pardon my ignorance, but isn't there a general rule of thumb that things are considered canon unless otherwise stated?

So if it was canon in 3.5, and canon in 4e (and not a cosmoslogical shift, just a person's identity) then shouldn't it default to still being canon?

To take a name I know nothing about, but in FR there is a guy named "Mert the Moneylender" correct? He hasn't been mentioned in 5e to my knowledge, but everything about him from older editions should still be canon unless directly stated otherwise, by my understanding.

Mirt has been mentioned, a few times I think, in Dragon Heist extensively.

 

[Mistwell]

So, just in case I've missed the boat on this, I want to confirm.

The issue isn't Iggwilv's lore, everyone agrees on everything attributed to her.

The issue isn't Tasha's Lore, whoever she was, I guess a member of this Seven group, everyone agrees on that.


The only issue is that there is lore that some people don't think is canon that says Iggwilv took on the appearance of Tasha, and they were secretly the same person.

That's it. That is the only problem people have with the situation.

You have two strong female characters, in a setting which frankly doesn't have a lot of strong female characters, that you're combining into one single character for no reason other than it was vaguely mentioned in a couple of blurbs in very late essentially off-hand commentary. You give those off-hand blurbs the power to erase one of the few strong female characters from the setting for...reasons I guess?

I have yet to hear a single argument why you should combine the two characters other than "there's some precedent". I have yet to hear a single in-game reason why the game benefits from that combination other than one person said "Tasha is easier to pronounce."

Is that it? Is that the best reason we have for this, the pronunciation?

For me, if you want to keep both precedents, just say "Iggwilv has appeared as Tasha. Whether she is the real Tasha or just posed as Tasha is anyone's guess." That leaves open the possibility they will still have a separate Tasha for the setting in the future.