D&D 5E D&D Lore Changes: Multiversal Focus & Fey Goblins of Prehistory

WotC's Jeremy Crawford revealed a couple of the lore changes in Monsters of the Multiverse.

• The big shift is toward the multiverse as the game's main perspective rather than a specific setting. The game is shifting towards a multiversal focus, with a variety of worlds and settings.
• Universe-spanning mythical story beats, such as deep lore on goblinoids going back to 1st Edition, and the gods they had before Maglubiyet. Prior to Magulbiyet unifying them, goblinoids were folk of the feywild in keeping with 'real-world' folklore.
• Changelings aren't just Eberron, but they've been everywhere -- you just don't necessarily know it. Their origin is also in the realm of the fey.

D&D 5E - A Compilation of all the Race Changes in Monsters of the Multiverse

Over on Reddit, user KingJackel went through the video leak which came out a few days ago and manually compiled a list of all the changes to races in the book. The changes are quite extensive, with only the fairy and harengon remaining unchanged. The book contains 33 races in total, compiled and...

www.enworld.org

 

[doctorbadwolf]

This is the potential of what was said in the video, yes. Whether the reality lives up to that promise remains to be seen.

I see no reason to doubt it, other than just…general pessimism, I guess.

 

[doctorbadwolf]

And again, it isn't changing ALL monsters. I'm sure that the Bodak, the Barghest, the Froghemoth, and many other non-spellcasting monsters didn't change at all.

I hope the anniversary MM does modify those sorts of monsters, making them a bit more interesting, with skills so PCs aren’t just out there in a whole league of their own, more interesting actions, etc.

 

[UngeheuerLich]

5e does have a default setting though, that default setting is just “The Multiverse.” Here, look:


That’s from 2015!

Thank you. I just wanted to tell everybody that this news is many years old... but I could not find the quote.

 

[Argyle King]

I don’t blame you. Twitter is a literal bullying machine.

I agree! For an example of this in action, look at the changes made to Eberron and Dark Sun in 4e. 4e also had a multiverse meta-setting, and most of the changes made to those two settings were to make them conform better to the World Axis cosmology, which was part of the 4e multiverse.

I think, due to some of the backlash to these sorts of changes during 4e, they’re taking a more cautious approach with 5e’s meta-setting. It took them this long to give us a peek at the underlying lore of the 5e multiverse, and they seem more willing to allow worlds like Eberron to retain their own cosmologies rather than forcing them to conform to the Great Wheel. But I think some amount of tweaking of the settings to conform to the assumptions of 5e’s multiverse will be inevitable, especially for the M:tG planes.

I meant to say that Twitter is a "breeding ground" for a toxic community, but I lost the battle against autocorrect.

4E, despite what I said earlier, is (I agree) a good example.

It's also an example of how the small change I mentioned can have larger impacts because my anecdotal* view is that the approach changed a lot between the Worlds & Monsters previews and the the second round of books.

*I say anecdotal because I was not present for any design meetings. I can only comment on how the product appeared to change from the perspective of a customer.

 

[Malmuria]

So goblins, regardless of campaign setting, will be presented as having the same mythical origin story and worshiping the same gods?

 

[JEB]

I see no reason to doubt it, other than just…general pessimism, I guess.

A lot depends on whether or not Monsters of the Multiverse is thinner on inspirational lore because it's trying to pack two books' worth of material into one... or if it's thinner on inspirational lore because that's what a multiverse-first approach looks like to Wizards.

Is this book's approach a step along the path to something deeper and more expansive: a lean core with multiple other paths, to inspire players both casual and experienced? Or is the path being laid out directly as is: a few really general ideas combined with "go buy some $50 setting books if you want more" or "make it up yourself!" I guess the next two years will tell us.

 

[Charlaquin]

So goblins, regardless of campaign setting, will be presented as having the same mythical origin story and worshiping the same gods?

I very much doubt they’ll worship the same gods across different worlds, considering the fact that different D&D worlds have different pantheons. The Faewild will just be where the goblins of the multiverse originally came from. I’d bet the way they’ll explain it is that the Faewild was their home plane in the First World. When the First World shattered, the goblins that echoed across the various shards may have changed. In many of these worlds, they left the Faewild for the material plane, while in others they may have stayed, or migrated to other planes. In some worlds, such as Abier, they may have been corrupted by the influence of evil gods, while in other worlds they may have remained free, or begun worshipping good gods. It’s just giving them a common meta-origin, while allowing individual worlds to have their own lore surrounding goblins.

 

[QuentinGeorge]

I very much doubt they’ll worship the same gods across different worlds, considering the fact that different D&D worlds have different pantheons. The Faewild will just be where the goblins of the multiverse originally came from. I’d bet the way they’ll explain it is that the Faewild was their home plane in the First World. When the First World shattered, the goblins that echoed across the various shards may have changed. In many of these worlds, they left the Faewild for the material plane, while in others they may have stayed, or migrated to other planes. In some worlds, such as Abier, they may have been corrupted by the influence of evil gods, while in other worlds they may have remained free, or begun worshipping good gods. It’s just giving them a common meta-origin, while allowing individual worlds to have their own lore surrounding goblins.

So we are doubling down on this terrible shoehorned single origin for various settings despite the fact it makes no sense for most of them.

 

[Aldarc]

I don’t blame you. Twitter is a literal bullying machine.

I agree! For an example of this in action, look at the changes made to Eberron and Dark Sun in 4e. 4e also had a multiverse meta-setting, and most of the changes made to those two settings were to make them conform better to the World Axis cosmology, which was part of the 4e multiverse.

I think, due to some of the backlash to these sorts of changes during 4e, they’re taking a more cautious approach with 5e’s meta-setting. It took them this long to give us a peek at the underlying lore of the 5e multiverse, and they seem more willing to allow worlds like Eberron to retain their own cosmologies rather than forcing them to conform to the Great Wheel. But I think some amount of tweaking of the settings to conform to the assumptions of 5e’s multiverse will be inevitable, especially for the M:tG planes.

Keith Baker has already made statements from what he has gleaned from the grapevine regarding fey goblins and changelings on how he would or will do things differently for his own Eberron.

 

[Ruin Explorer]

Honestly this is all just another reason to bring in parts of Planescape, specifically Sigil, and make it a linking-place between the multiverse's realms. I don't think you could have the whole of Planescape, you'd have to reshape it a bit so it could encompass all realms (rather than being Great Wheel-specific), but Sigil could work with that, and the Factions (or revised versions thereof) could fit really well with that. You could also modernize and expand Sigil.

So we are doubling down on this terrible shoehorned single origin for various settings despite the fact it makes no sense for most of them.

I mean, we did that for decades with various beings, so I'm not really feeling like this is a very effective argument.