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.

 

[Maxperson]

The who?

Yes, The Who are also very famous, but not female.

 

[Parmandur]

And it looks like this will be the race book... and the alternat class features book... so maybe it is just all the last years UA

Well, yes, that's why they do the UA. Probably not all of it, just what passed muster,and there is stuff here they never tested, like the Race variants and puzzles.

 

[Parmandur]

Now the new book has it's own site: Tasha's Cauldron of Everything | Dungeons & Dragons

Nice, we'll get those Sidekick rules in their full form, and more generic Group Patron rules than the Eberron version.

 

[Parmandur]

Everything except for psionics it seems.

Yet to be seen: Psionics didn't get a bullet point, but the Subclasses, Feat and Spells may be in easily enough under those relevant bullet points.

 

[amethal]

In castle greyhawk WGR1 there is a group of true neutral (!) dwarves which attack everybody and should be attacked by PCs intent on exploring this dungeon

Assuming you mean Greyhawk Ruins, the Dwarves do not "attack everybody".

They refuse access to "their" tower unless the party agree to their terms. This may well lead to the PCs trying to force their way in, but it doesn't amount to they "should be attacked by PCs intent on exploring".

 

[billd91]

Again, you claim that drow would be KOS. Why? Depending on when you run your campaign, no one has even HEARD of drow, let alone have any actual opinion of them. Remember, D1-3 is the first appearance of Drow in the game. They live in a small(ish) enclave under the mountains. They have had zero contact with anyone. Anyone seeing a drow would likely just mistake it for a funny looking elf. It's not like Forgotten Realms where Drow have played a major role in the history of the setting. The vast majority of people wouldn't have the first clue what a drow was.

Would you expect someone in Nazi regalia to not be abused if he showed up in St. Petersburg, Volgograd, or Warsaw? Elves were involved in a brutal, even genocidal, war with them in not too distant memory (from an elf's perspective). That's part of why you'd expect any drow walking about undisguised to be in for a world of hurt, from elves if nobody else knew what they were.
The same largely applies between dwarves, gnomes and goblins/orcs. The Greyhawk setting itself includes lots of strife, well within living memory for these long-lived races like the Hateful Wars that drove a lot of the humanoids from the Lortmil Mountains, through the Uleks, and into the Pomarj.
And if, as has been mentioned, the relationships in the Great Kingdom, Iuz, and the Horned Society would likely produce tieflings, that isn't exactly an endorsement of their being happily coexisting in any of the surrounding nations.
Face it, the setting is riven repeatedly in recent centuries by warfare and substantial parts of the geography continue to be held by evil forces of infernal-worshipers, cambions, and humanoids. With that in mind, it would be weird if characters with racial associations to those enemies weren't hassled - maybe not killed on sight, but spat on, beaten, and socially marginalized.

In any case, in a setting with Yakfolk, I, again, am baffled that people draw the line at tieflings and dragonborn. It's just so bizarre.

People draw all sorts of lines for their own personal preferences - there's nothing wrong with that and as long as someone explains it like that, I'm OK with it. The presence of one oddball doesn't require the presence of more oddballs.

I'm personally not that keen on tieflings or dragonborn because I'm not that keen on characters starting out with resistance to various energy attacks. I'm also not that keen on the way tieflings have been developed since their debut in Planescape - the aesthetic has converged around horns, horns, horns as opposed to being a lot broader (like a scent of ash that follows them or other more creative options) - and I'm tired of that aesthetic.

 

[Mirtek]

Hard to explain. Orcus was Tenebrous and he wasn't at the same time. His soulless the same. But it depends on the source. Some say he renamed himself Tenebrous when he reincarnated as a true god. Others say he took the form of the Shadow that Was on accident and he wished to be a God as Orcus, not Tenebrous. Just being nitpicky.

Note that during this time Orcus was a lesser deity himself before his demise. That's why the adventure points out that even as Tenebrous he is still a deity.

 

[Demetrios1453]

No mention of iggwliv

The alternate cover looks to be Iggwilv and Grazzt.

 

[Chaosmancer]

Now the new book has it's own site: Tasha's Cauldron of Everything | Dungeons & Dragons

Huh....

Anyone else find it a bit odd they are reprinting the Artificer and the Group Patron rules from Eberron: Rising from the Last War?


Also, any idea what new spells they might be talking about? You don't... they wouldn't reprint the Dunnamancy spells too would they?

 

[Parmandur]

Huh....

Anyone else find it a bit odd they are reprinting the Artificer and the Group Patron rules from Eberron: Rising from the Last War?


Also, any idea what new spells they might be talking about? You don't... they wouldn't reprint the Dunnamancy spells too would they?

They tested a number of new Spells in UA over the past year.

They are printing new Subclass (at least one) for the Artificer, so they better reprint the Base Class. I expect it will not have all Subclasses from Rising from the Last War.

They are including Group Patrons, but removing the Eberron specific flavor means it is new material, not a reprint.