Planescape 5 New D&D Books Coming in 2023 -- Including Planescape!

At today's Wizards Presents event, hosts Jimmy Wong, Ginny Di, and Sydnee Goodman announced the 2023 line-up of D&D books, which featured something old, something new, and an expansion of a fan favorite.

The first of the five books, Keys from the Golden Vault, will arrive in winter 2023. At Tuesday's press preview, Chris Perkins, Game Design Architect for D&D, described it as “Ocean’s Eleven meets D&D” and an anthology of short adventures revolving around heists, which can be dropped into existing campaigns.

In Spring 2023, giants get a sourcebook just like their traditional rivals, the dragons, did in Fizban's Treasury of Dragons. Bigby Presents: Glory of the Giants will be a deep dive into hill, frost, fire, cloud, and storm giants, plus much more.

Summer 2023 will have two releases. The Book of Many Things is a collection of creatures, locations, and other player-facing goodies related to that most famous D&D magic item, the Deck of Many Things. Then “Phandelver Campaign” will expand the popular Lost Mine of Phandelver from the D&D Starter Set into a full campaign tinged with cosmic horror.

And then last, but certainly not least, in Fall 2023, WotC revives another classic D&D setting – Planescape. Just like Spelljammer: Adventures in Space, Planescape will be presented as a three-book set containing a setting guide, bestiary, and adventure campaign in a slipcase. Despite the Spelljammer comparison they did not confirm whether it would also contain a DM screen.

More information on these five titles will be released when we get closer to them in date.

 

[Whizbang Dustyboots]

If it is true, it lessens the value of every campaign setting by presenting them as fractured copies of the true world.

In what way?

All of the same big stuff happened on those campaign worlds as before. Unless you're playing something like Dawnforge or Morningstar, is your game world's identity tied up in it being the beginning of the multiverse?

And having the known world be a fallen version of a mythical earlier world is a super-common element of real world myth and legend. It doesn't make the real lives or legends of those civilizations any lesser because they are somehow about the people who were kicked out of paradise or whose ancestors lived on a magical island that sank or whatever.

 

[Incenjucar]

As long as settings remain mechanically compatible (boo imbalanced setting-specific crunch), and don't disrupt future lore for a setting, I don't mind context-altering material. Just make sure it doesn't require effort to ignore.

 

[Ruin Explorer]

And having the known world be a fallen version of a mythical earlier world is a super-common element of real world myth and legend. It doesn't make the real lives or legends of those civilizations any lesser because they are somehow about the people who were kicked out of paradise or whose ancestors lived on a magical island that sank or whatever.

I mean it does though, that's the entire meaning of that kind of legend - you are less than your mighty ancestors were - this is why it was so popular with Nazis and their ilk. They were going to RETVRN us to the original "superior" state. No doubt there would be lots of white marble statues around.

The entire popularity of the modern version of the Atlantis legend centres on this. Mussolini's entire deal was that he was going to (quite literally) RETVRN people to the Roman Empire too.

 

[Veltharis ap Rylix]

If it isn't true, then yes, its just a bit of lore I don't like. If it is true, it lessens the value of every campaign setting by presenting them as fractured copies of the true world. This is the third time I've said it.

Fractured copies of the "original" world is not the same as fractured copies of the "true" world.

If a massive tree burns down but its seeds grow into a dozen new trees, are they inherently "lesser" than their predecessor simply by virtue of coming after it? Even if they survive for longer than the original and grow larger than it ever did?

Are all civilizations that trace their roots back to the Roman Empire inherently and eternally lesser than the Roman Empire?

 

[Whizbang Dustyboots]

I mean it does though, that's the entire meaning of that kind of legend - you are less than your mighty ancestors were - this is why it was so popular with Nazis and their ilk. They were going to RETVRN us to the original "superior" state. No doubt there would be lots of white marble statues around.

The entire popularity of the modern version of the Atlantis legend centres on this.

But other than Morningstar or Dawnforge, have there been settings where the players or DM were told "look, you folks, or maybe your grandparents, were the first folks of any consequence on this mudball?"

Maybe that was slipped into a setting book and I missed it, but I can't think of any.

Instead, every setting I can think of -- again, other than Morningstar and Dawnforge -- are "OK, thousands of years ago, there was this empire, and this empire, and thousands of years after that, there was this empire, and hundreds of years ago, this stuff happened, and now here you are, and those are a bunch of ruins you can find cool crap in."

One more layer of dead civilizations -- on another plane, at that, if it's even real -- isn't something I can wrap my brain around as a problem: "These exceptionally old ruins that even the dragons argue might be mythical have some really wild magic that hasn't been seen in 20,000 years and some records that will blow your local wizards guild's collective minds out the back of their pointy hats."

 

[Micah Sweet]

Fractured copies of the "original" world is not the same as fractured copies of the "true" world.

If a massive tree burns down but its seeds grow into a dozen new trees, are they inherently "lesser" than their predecessor simply by virtue of coming after it? Even if they survive for outlive the original and grow larger than it ever did?

Are all civilizations that trace their roots back to the Roman Empire inherently and eternally lesser than the Roman Empire?

They're at least somewhat lesser if they're otherwise supposed to have their own origins, on their own worlds, and have had that subsumed by an all-encompassing "super-legend" that applies to everything.

 

[Micah Sweet]

But other than Morningstar or Dawnforge, have there been settings where the players or DM were told "look, you folks, or maybe your grandparents, were the first folks of any consequence on this mudball?"

Maybe that was slipped into a setting book and I missed it, but I can't think of any.

Instead, every setting I can think of -- again, other than Morningstar and Dawnforge -- are "OK, thousands of years ago, there was this empire, and this empire, and thousands of years after that, there was this empire, and hundreds of years ago, this stuff happened, and now here you are, and those are a bunch of ruins you can find cool crap in."

One more layer of dead civilizations -- on another plane, at that, if it's even real -- isn't something I can wrap my brain around as a problem: "These exceptionally old ruins that even the dragons argue might be mythical have some really wild magic that hasn't been seen in 20,000 years and some records that will blow your local wizards guild's collective minds out the back of their pointy hats."

Yes, those are all different settings, with different origins. Not different settings with the same origin stapled at the beginning sometimes decades after their creation.

 

[MonsterEnvy]

I mean it does though, that's the entire meaning of that kind of legend - you are less than your mighty ancestors were - this is why it was so popular with Nazis and their ilk. They were going to RETVRN us to the original "superior" state. No doubt there would be lots of white marble statues around.

The entire popularity of the modern version of the Atlantis legend centres on this. Mussolini's entire deal was that he was going to (quite literally) RETVRN people to the Roman Empire too.

Not at all, cause nothing about the first world says it was better than the worlds that came after it. (Except for maybe the Dragons)

 

[MonsterEnvy]

They're at least somewhat lesser if they're otherwise supposed to have their own origins, on their own worlds, and have had that subsumed by an all-encompassing "super-legend" that applies to everything.

That does not make them lesser.

 

[Veltharis ap Rylix]

They're at least somewhat lesser if they're otherwise supposed to have their own origins, on their own worlds, and have had that subsumed by an all-encompassing "super-legend" that applies to everything.

The gods (or some subset of them) created the First World - for whatever reason, it didn't work out and was ultimately destroyed.

Those gods and/or others who took inspiration from that original (and possibly some direct elements that survived its destruction) then go off and create a multitude of new worlds.

How does any particular setting secretly being the gods' second/third/nth showing at the "collaborative worldbuilding" rodeo suddenly mean that nothing they create can ever live up to their debut work? How does knowledge that this original work ever even existed diminish the value of their current projects?

Especially if the existence of the First World remains just a theory and legend in-universe, rather than something explicitly stated as fact?