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

 

[Yaarel]

The fluff is off, although they are both Ritual casters. Honestly they should make the prerequisites full caster simplify.

The Bard spells and abilities, the luck, the healing, the divination, the trickery − all of it is spot on for a shaman.

Just remove the lute!

The chanting or the commanding is correct.

If one wants a drum or a rattle that can be fine too, depending on culture.

 

[Thunder Brother]

The Bard is excellent for a shaman.

Besides the prominence of wild shape as a class feature, doesn't druid fit better as a shaman? A Wisdom-based caster makes more sense to me than a Charisma-based one, at the very least.

 

[Parmandur]

Besides the prominence of wild shape in as a class feature, doesn't druid fit better as a shaman? A Wisdom-based caster makes more sense to me than a Charisma-based one, at least to me.

Yeah, if people want to talk about broad Shamanism, then what us a Druid, if not a Shaman...?

 

[Henadic Theologian]

Clerics from those Colleges already have good Subclasses that fit, however. I expect that, similar to Rabnica, there will be full-time advice for including existing character options such as Grave or Knowledge Clerics.

The problem is that they won't have access to those key subclass features.

 

[Parmandur]

The problem is that they won't have access to those key subclass features.

Might be that there are also new Spells, that tie more into the flavors of the Colleges. This isn't necessarily the entire puzzle.

 

[Henadic Theologian]

Clerics from those Colleges already have good Subclasses that fit, however. I expect that, similar to Rabnica, there will be full-time advice for including existing character options such as Grave or Knowledge Clerics.

The problem is that they won't have access to those key subclass features.

 

[Yaarel]

The Druid is often wrong. Most shamans dont shapeshift into animals. Even the ones who do, dont do it all the time. Likewise, the elemental tropes are often wrong, depending on the culture. In a Nordic context, the Druid can be useful for certain Jotnar.

The Bard is exact for a shaman. If a particular shaman can shapeshift, the Bard has a spell for that.



Shamanic magic and the Bard class.

For Noaidi shamans among the Sami, there is a chanting tradition, called Joik, whose music is spontaneous improvisation, while meditating to evoke the mindful presence of a specific place, animal, person or so on.

Generally, the chanting is wordless, but words and lyrics can spontaneously happen as part of the evocative connection.

This kind of chanting is ancient among the Sami. It is thought to resemble the masculine protective magic among the Norse, which is specifically sung. Norse, feminine, shamanic magic is spoken as commands and instructions. Later Christian Norwegians outlawed the Sami Joik chanting, because it sounded like the pre-Christian Norse magical traditions.

Wikipedia has a writeup about the Joik that is decent.

Joik - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org

This musical aspect among the Nordic shamans compares to the Native American cultures and the Asian cultures, including the Shaman proper.

 

[Levistus's_Leviathan]

Yeah, if people want to talk about broad Shamanism, then what us a Druid, if not a Shaman...?

I would consider the Druid a proper shaman class if it had more totem abilities and could summon spiritual companions instead of Wild Shaping. I certainly think it fits better than Bard, but IMHO, we don't have a proper "Shaman Class" in 5e yet. (I would prefer for the class to use Pact Magic, too.)

 

[Yaarel]

Plus, the reallife Bard (Fili) of the British Isles is itself a shamanic tradition.

The concept of Merlin is a bard.

 

[Yaarel]

It might be misleading to think of shamans and "spirits".

The interaction isnt with "spirits" per se, but with specific objects: specific features of nature. A particular river, a particular rock formation, a nearby group of animals, a certain tree, and so on. The shaman can interact with them in a dreamlike way, but the participants in the conversation are physical objects in the Material Plane.