Evil Drow Statblocks to Return in Forgotten Realms Rulebooks Later This Year

Drow-specific NPC statblocks will be included in the upcoming Forgotten Realms Adventurer's Guide set for release later this year. Over the past several weeks, much hullabaloo has been made over the Monster Manual, specifically that the D&D design team replaced specific drow and orc statblocks with generic NPC statblocks that can be used for any kind of humanoids. In a video released today, D&D lead designer Jeremy Crawford confirmed that more specific statblocks tied to specific humanoid sects or characters would return in future rulebooks, with evil drow given as an example.

"Also for anyone who's eager to see more species-tailored humanoid statblocks, people are going to see more of that in our setting books," Crawford said. "You're going to see that in our Forgotten Realms products, for example. The malevolent drow of Menzoberranzan are an important part of that setting and so they get their own statblocks. This is really true of all the creatures in the Monster Manual. This is your massive starting toy box of monsters that are usable anywhere in the multiverse. The bestiaries in our setting products, that's where we can provide you versions of things tailored to the cultures and histories of our different worlds."

 

[Jeremy E Grenemyer]

Unfortunately, WotC deleted those orcs with the Sundering reset. It was a bit of a “shooting themselves in the foot” move because they could have used the Kingdom of Many Arrows as a prime example of how not all orcs are bloodthirsty savages.

Well that’s a bummer.

Perhaps they can recover by creating smaller proto kingdoms where Many-Arrows existed?

There are more orcs than humans in the continent of Faerûn. It would be nice to see orken kingdoms/territories/cities appearing on the map.

 

[Distracted DM]

While it doesn't really matter, the question I would have would be when did they start using "multiverse"? After a quick search, I see that DC comic books started using the idea of different versions of earth back in the 40s and of course we had Crisis on Infinite Earths in 1985. But did they use the term multiverse? Did Moorcock or Zelazny?

I thought we were just talking about the term multiverse specifically as we use it today, in which case yes it was Moorcock.

But the concept of many worlds/realities in fiction? You can go back far. CS Lewis at least, probably before.

 

[Parmandur]

While it doesn't really matter, the question I would have would be when did they start using "multiverse"? After a quick search, I see that DC comic books started using the idea of different versions of earth back in the 40s and of course we had Crisis on Infinite Earths in 1985. But did they use the term multiverse? Did Moorcock or Zelazny? I mean I remember reading Aasimov (Heinlen? Both?) that talked about multiple versions of reality. Some variation of the idea of an alternative world is probably as old as humanity.

In any case I don't think the multiverse concept is really about marketing in the sense of hanging onto MCU coattails, the term has been used for at least 40 years in the context of D&D. It's more to explain having some gods and lore common to multiple campaign settings. Along with, of course, giving them a way to say "Tired of world X? Have your PCs bop over to world Y that we just published a book for!"

Moorcock specifically used the word Multiverse, like in thr 60s. C. S. Lewis was going got something pretty similar to the D&D multiverse with the Wood Between Words in Magicians Nephew in the 50s, but he was also riffing on some older stuff.

 

[Zardnaar]

It's not that TSR had a thing for elves, it's that fans have a thing for elves. People like elves! So, TSR gave them elves.

Chicken egg. Generally I think elves are pretty humans ergo popular. It's really that simple.

 

[MonsterEnvy]

Well that’s a bummer.

Perhaps they can recover by creating smaller proto kingdoms where Many-Arrows existed?

There are more orcs than humans in the continent of Faerûn. It would be nice to see orken kingdoms/territories/cities appearing on the map.

Many Arrows still exists but has retreated more to the mountains.

 

[Jaeger]

"Also for anyone who's eager to see more species-tailored humanoid statblocks, people are going to see more of that in our setting books," Crawford said. "You're going to see that in our Forgotten Realms products, for example. The malevolent drow of Menzoberranzan are an important part of that setting and so they get their own statblocks. This is really true of all the creatures in the Monster Manual. This is your massive starting toy box of monsters that are usable anywhere in the multiverse. The bestiaries in our setting products, that's where we can provide you versions of things tailored to the cultures and histories of our different worlds."

So maybe my memory is a little hazy, but wasn't releasing a bunch of different settings that divided the fanbase one of the things WotC circa 2000 pointed to that contributed to TSR's bankruptcy?

 

[Chaltab]

So maybe my memory is a little hazy, but wasn't releasing a bunch of different settings that divided the fanbase one of the things WotC circa 2000 pointed to that contributed to TSR's bankruptcy?

It's not the same situation. TSR was releasing multiple settings as completely separate product lines along with dozens of products for each setting. The settings often had house rules that altered the game in mutually exclusive ways, making them broadly incompatible or at least very difficult to use together. On top of that hey had made some bad bets (Dragon Dice, Buck Rogers) and were printing a lot of books on credit which then couldn't be sold, so they couldn't recoup the debt.

That's not to say that things are fine now; I don't know what WOTCs financials look like. It's just not a dircectly analogous situation to what killed TSR.

 

[Dire Bare]

Chicken egg. Generally I think elves are pretty humans ergo popular. It's really that simple.

I don't think so, with the chicken-vs-egg aspect.

Elves are popular in fantasy fiction, even outside of D&D. D&D, of course, took its core three elven subraces (high, gray, wood) from Tolkien . . . but if you get into the weeds in the Tolkien legendarium, he had LOTS of elven subgroups as well.

Regarding, elves are pretty humans . . . well, that's a different point. And sure, but . . . all PC races are idealized humans in one way or another. Elves live forever, super healthy, smart, artistic, skilled, sexy . . . yes, they are idealized humans at their core.

 

[gban007]

While it doesn't really matter, the question I would have would be when did they start using "multiverse"? After a quick search, I see that DC comic books started using the idea of different versions of earth back in the 40s and of course we had Crisis on Infinite Earths in 1985. But did they use the term multiverse? Did Moorcock or Zelazny? I mean I remember reading Aasimov (Heinlen? Both?) that talked about multiple versions of reality. Some variation of the idea of an alternative world is probably as old as humanity.

In any case I don't think the multiverse concept is really about marketing in the sense of hanging onto MCU coattails, the term has been used for at least 40 years in the context of D&D. It's more to explain having some gods and lore common to multiple campaign settings. Along with, of course, giving them a way to say "Tired of world X? Have your PCs bop over to world Y that we just published a book for!"

I think it gets a bit confusing at times, as different worlds, especially if common gods / lore, doesn't mean a multiverse, could just be one universe holding all the worlds. If accept that gods could just be local to a system, then even if gods differ, could still be the one universe. The planes on the other hand with different laws of physics etc are more in line with a multiverse, and more like the string theory version I think.
Different groups versions of FR could be multiverse too, more in line with MCU etc with parallel universes.
It would be interesting to know in what manner DnD was using multiverse previously vs now.

 

[QuentinGeorge]

The new MM has more monsters and NPCs than the 2014 MM. Since it has more overall stat blocks, it has more utility.

"more overall statblocks" is doing a lot of heavy lifting in that assertion. If it has fewer statblocks that I need in my campaign then it is of less utility, is it not? If I gave you a Monster Manual with 10,000 statblocks that are say, all varieties of pirates, would you say that has more or less utility than the current Monster Manual?