D&D 5E Two New D&D Books Revealed: Feywild & Strixhaven Mage School

Amazon has revealed the next two D&D hardcovers! The Wild Beyond the Witchlight is a feywild adventure due in September, and Curriculum of Chaos is a Magic: the Gathering setting of Strixhaven, which looks like a Harry Potter-esque mage school, set for November.

Amazon.com: The Wild Beyond the Witchlight: A Feywild Adventure (Dungeons & Dragons Book) (9780786967278): Wizards RPG Team: Books

Amazon.com: The Wild Beyond the Witchlight: A Feywild Adventure (Dungeons & Dragons Book) (9780786967278): Wizards RPG Team: Books

www.amazon.com

The Wild Beyond the Witchlight is D&D's next big adventure storyline that brings the wicked whimsy of the Feywild to fifth edition for the first time.

The recent Unearthed Arcana, Folk of the Feywild, contained the fairy, hobgoblin of the Feywild, owlfolk, and rabbitfolk. UA is usually a good preview of what's in upcoming D&D books.

Strixhaven: Curriculum of Chaos (D&D/MTG Adventure Book) (Dungeons & Dragons): Wizards RPG Team: 9780786967445: Books

Strixhaven: Curriculum of Chaos (D&D/MTG Adventure Book) (Dungeons & Dragons) [Wizards RPG Team] on Amazon.com. *FREE* shipping on qualifying offers. Strixhaven: Curriculum of Chaos (D&D/MTG Adventure Book) (Dungeons & Dragons)

www.amazon.com

Curriculum of Chaos is an upcoming D&D release set in the Magic: The Gathering world of Strixhaven -- a brand new MtG set only just launched.

Strixhaven is a school of mages on the plane of Arcavios, an elite university with five rival colleges founded by dragons: Silverquill (eloquence), Prismari (elemental arts), Witherbloom (life and death), Lorehold (archaeomancy), and Quandrix (numeromancy). You can read more about the M:tG set here.

You will be able to tune into WotC's streamed event D&D Live on July 16 and 17 for details on both, including new character options, monsters, mechanics, story hooks, and more!

D&D 5E - Here Is The Full & Alternate Cover Art Of The Wild Beyond the Witchlight

Here is the cover art for The Wild Beyond the Witchlight, the hardcover D&D product revealed this weekend. Cover art by Tyler Jacobson Alternate cover by Hydro74 https://www.enworld.org/threads/two-new-d-d-books-revealed-feywild-strixhaven-mage-school.680500/

www.enworld.org

D&D 5E - And Here Is Strixhaven's Cover Art!

It's not just The Wild Beyond The Witchlight's cover art being revealed today! We also have Magali Villeneuve's cover art for Strixhaven: Curriculum of Chaos! Strixhaven is an upcoming D&D setting based on the recently released Magic: the Gathering world, and features a mage school -- as Theros...

www.enworld.org

 

[Marandahir]

The Samurai is a better Champion than the Champion.

Agreed 100%.

 

[Kurotowa]

This story reports that we should get a new UA tomorrow for Strixhaven.

"While Dungeons & Dragons typically does not announce a book five months in advance, the timing of the announcement coincides with an upcoming Unearthed Arcana playtest titled "Mages of Strixhaven," which likely would have spoiled D&D's plans. That Unearthed Arcana will be released at some point tomorrow, June 8th."

 

[Mind of tempest]

I can't say they could do what you're asking for the Monk without a wholescale replacement class that tests various ideas for it. On the other hand, they can continue to broaden the class by creating alternate class features and subclasses, which could backdoor fix it (if it's worth saving, which I think it kinda is).

I agree that the Samurai subclass is great mechanically. No need to get rid of it, but future reprints could rename it and explain that the Japanese Samurai are one good example of this archetype. There's no Kiai Shout in the class features, and the Fighting Spirit and Rapid Strike features, while honouring the legacy of Samurai in D&D and representing Samurai in pulp fiction pretty darn well, are not beholden to the term Samurai and could easily represent elegant unmounted warrior-courtiers from various cultures (the Khastriya of India, the Persian Immortals, the Cheyenne Military Societies, the Maori Warriors, the Sacred Band of Thebes, the Eagle and Jaguar warriors of the Aztecs, the Variags of Byzantium, etc).

honestly, the samurai works for most of earths heavily armoured warriors from a noble class so knight would work just as well but a generic one not rooted to a culture but still sounds good is hard to near impossible and I would prefer the European name not drown out the other cultures names, it would still have to be made more modular so it could be made to fit better but warlock proves that can work well.

monk is a class I want to wholesale redo for a homebrew but I suck at explaining my idea as I am terrible at typing my ideas out, monk is a class which nothing else could model without a whole lot of multiclassing, not like sorcerer or ranger who might not even have a real place going forward.

 

[Whizbang Dustyboots]

This story reports that we should get a new UA tomorrow for Strixhaven.

"While Dungeons & Dragons typically does not announce a book five months in advance, the timing of the announcement coincides with an upcoming Unearthed Arcana playtest titled "Mages of Strixhaven," which likely would have spoiled D&D's plans. That Unearthed Arcana will be released at some point tomorrow, June 8th."

Fingers crossed for magical gifts and a ton of new spells.

 

[Parmandur]

Fingers crossed for magical gifts and a ton of new spells.

As a Magic Set, Strixhaven focused on Instant and Sorcery Spells in a big way, so big flashy effects that bend and break the normal rules of Magic, including the "Myatocal Archives" reprints of major Instnat and Sorcery cards from throughout MtG history. Lorewise, the school library is supposed to have every Spell in the Magic multiverse.

Neither Ravnica nor Theros did too much with Spells, being more focused on normal D&D stuff in a new Setting with genre elements. Strixhaven...I think we might see lots of new Spells.

 

[darjr]

DnDBeyond got their sale online.

 

[Kurotowa]

Fingers crossed for magical gifts and a ton of new spells.

I'd actually bet against both of those. IIRC there wasn't a UA test of either the Dark Gifts or Supernatural Gifts, so I wouldn't expect to see one here even if Magical Gifts turn up in the final book. As for spells, I'm sure we'll see some, but I'm more expecting material to make all classes at home in Strixhaven. At least, what I'm hoping to see is a mix of feats, subclasses, and spells that has something for everyone.

 

[Mind of tempest]

You make a fair point here, and it's related to how 5e classes function - they need to be as big-hat as possible, to offer all sorts of cultural heroic and mythological archetypes. Past editions had a new class every time they wanted to come up with some specific archetype that didn't quite fit the themes of the core classes, even if they overlapped heavily. 5e says you can play as a Ninja, but think about whether you're a mystic ninja (Way of Shadow Monk) or Batman-esque grit and tech Ninja (Assassin archetype Rogue). Previous editions would have given you 5 different classes each that said Ninja in a different way.

I'd personally rather they didn't use the term Bard or Druid either, as the hats are becoming too small for the various heads filling them.

Monk is a great example of a generalized term for an overly specific (and problematic in my view) set of class features. Bard and Druid are the opposite - too specific terms for much more generalized concepts. Paladin is similar. I'd RATHER they not use culturally specific class names, especially as the classes expand to include so many concepts beyond the western European archetypes.

But these are the sacred cows that D&D can't slaughter this edition, just as M:tG can't slaughter the Shaman at this point in time. D&D tried to slaughter their cows in 4e, and got a lot of backlash for it. They didn't slaughter these ones particularly (and even embraced the term Shaman as a class), but they slaughtered other sacred cows and ended up alienating a good chunk of their audience.

But D&D doesn't have to incorporate another loaded term into its baggage in 5e. And I also believe that to an extent, terms like Bard and Druid and Paladin have become generalized terms in D&D history due to their presence in the game for 40+ years. Barbarian has took, to far more unfortunate results than those three. Shaman has not. It also carries with it the very specific cultural appropriation baggage of 18th-20th Century racist anthology. Wikipedia uses it because of the sheer documentation of use that way by the anthropological community, but then spends a large section to the criticism of the term by people who want Anthropology to be better. I think D&D can do better in general, and I expect they will for 6e and tread lightly with their present decisions in 5e.

personally, I am less kill the scared and more move the specific to a subclass as most people will just get slightly annoyed at a name change and not really do anything as long as they can play what they like.

I still have no idea what the bard was ever supposed to represent as magic troubadour seems nut even by my zany set of standards.

I have seen one guys monk homebrew thing call a cultivator on reddit if that would be more to your taste, honestly, I just want monk to work properly first as 4e and 5e are probably the only editions where it did not suck and I just love the little guy.
have got two ideas for subclasses to branch the monk out from its east Asian defaults if you wish to hear them

paladin is an odd beast as I know of few explicitly bless by gods characters who gain fantastic abilities so to me, I see less of a problem as I do not know of anything it is overshadowing plus it is less likely to anger like templar would.

have the anthropologist got a less offensive but still snappy word as an alternative yet?

I flat out want to melt barbarian down into a rage fighter subclass as at present it makes not a lick of sense to call it that or have it as a full class.

 

[Henadic Theologian]

I'd actually bet against both of those. IIRC there wasn't a UA test of either the Dark Gifts or Supernatural Gifts, so I wouldn't expect to see one here even if Magical Gifts turn up in the final book. As for spells, I'm sure we'll see some, but I'm more expecting material to make all classes at home in Strixhaven. At least, what I'm hoping to see is a mix of feats, subclasses, and spells that has something for everyone.

And races, Strixhaven has alot of races.

 

[Enevhar Aldarion]

paladin is an odd beast as I know of few explicitly bless by gods characters who gain fantastic abilities so to me, I see less of a problem as I do not know of anything it is overshadowing plus it is less likely to anger like templar would.

have the anthropologist got a less offensive but still snappy word as an alternative yet?

I flat out want to melt barbarian down into a rage fighter subclass as at present it makes not a lick of sense to call it that or have it as a full class.

I don't have much to say about the other classes right now, but I have felt for a long time that Paladin should not be it's own class. There should be a Holy Warrior class, that has a sub-class for each alignment, with the Paladin just the LG sub-class. Barbarian should be a culture, or sub-culture, and not a class. Instead we could have a barbarian-themed sub-class for several of the other classes, such as berserker for Fighter.

And Mystic should be removed from any association with psionics and instead be used to cover shaman, witch doctor, medicine man, and all the other similar real world animistic/nature-oriented/mystical beliefs. Maybe fold Druid into this too.