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.

 

[Whizbang Dustyboots]

Like, canon doesn't mean "good". I just learned recently that the Alien: Colonial Space Marine game (a game so bad, people sued for false advertising) is canon to the franchise. There is an alien whose AI is messed up, and it gets stuck doing the can-can in a room until a marine shoots it.

And that is officially canon. Stupid? Yes. Very Very stupid. But Canon.

No, that's a bug, since that game was crapped out way too fast without adequate quality control. Unless someone scripted it that way intentionally, that's no more canon than an obvious typo in the Monster Manual.

 

[Parmandur]

Although I've never stopped thinking all the nonsense they put him through in 2E and 3E and ever since was pretty silly, Vecna is a great choice for a book of forbidden lore.

Vecna's Handbook: For Your Eyes Only

 

[Kurotowa]

Vecna's Handbook: For Your Eyes Only

Vecna's Diary of Secrets. Vecna's Compendium of Lost Lore. Vecna's Album of Hidden Truths.

 

[Demetrios1453]

Vecna's Handbook: For Your Eyes Only

Might as well go for a series then.

Vecna's Handbook: You Only Live Twice.
Vecna's Handbook: Live and Let Die.
Vecna's Handbook: The Lich Who Loved Me.

 

[Urriak Uruk]

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.

I like Vecna a lot, but although he's the more dangerous/infamous villain than Iggwilv, she wrote the Daemonicon. She has as much of a rep for writing evil books (or more) than he does.

 

[Wishbone]

Unpopular opinion: Ghostwalk had some cool unique monsters, the gazetteer of the area around the city was interesting, and it deserves props for making Yuan-Ti central to a setting before any other settings did.

I'd expect a 5E revival of it to be about as likely as a 5E Jakandor (which makes Birthright look like a blockbuster hit), but it was cool and tried to do something interesting that D&D hadn't done before or since, by making death not the end, but just another avenue for adventure.

I totally think they should strip Manifest for parts and have a section in a book on how to keep playing after character death.

 

[Chaosmancer]

My understanding it was two places, with the adventuring being in the 4e era. And both were I think single sentences, and not important to the article content or the adventure content. They quote it all earlier in the thread. Or maybe it was a second article referencing the first one as a "they said this earlier" thing? Anyway none of it is worded like "This is canon". All of it is worded like speculation as a side point. But, if that is not the case, I am open to seeing something different?

What does the game gain by combining these two characters?

A villainess of unparalleled deceitfulness and cunning?

I mean, the adventure leaves it up to the PCs to reveal anything, as I understand it, and if they don't, then you have a villainess who was able to fool everyone, who was never officially caught, exposed, or had her plans thwarted. In fact, she bested everyone and if she could do it once, she could do it again and only doesn't because it doesn't suit her ends.

That seems compelling to me.

But, even if you find that to be a poor reason.... That doesn't exactly change canon. There is no balance scale where if something isn't "beneficial" enough for the game it is no longer canon. It is canon until someone rewrites it and changes the canon. That's just how these things work.

No, that's a bug, since that game was crapped out way too fast without adequate quality control. Unless someone scripted it that way intentionally, that's no more canon than an obvious typo in the Monster Manual.

What is the difference between a consistently buggy program that no one bothered to fix, and a monster manual full of typos that no one reprints?

Especially if the book doesn't have a non-typo version?

 

[DnD Warlord]

Just for me the idea that Tasha was secretly a villain in disguise is already super more interesting then EVRYTHing we knew about her added together...

The fact that the lowest level save or suck spell was made by a villain make too much sense

that little girl who wrote the letter (if she still plays 40ish years later) would probably be way happier with HER mage having a back story then just a name...

 

[dave2008]

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.

I just mentioned you so that you had a chance to respond. I didn't think you had any issues with EM. Regarding Dragon, it was explicitly canon in 4e, but not before IIRC. Of course the Tasha / Iggy connection was made in a canon adventure too (in 3.5e).

 

[Weiley31]

Vecna's Handbook: For Your Eyes Only

Hand Edition.