Coming in May: Mordenkainen's Tome of Foes! [UPDATED!]

So they just gave the title and showed the cover mock-ups; no specific info till Monday?

 

[Parmandur]

Agree.

Keeping in mind, we really don't know what's going to be in the book yet. I mean, a bunch of people here claim to know, in some surprising detail. But we don't really know.

WotC has been ham-fistedly previewing the book for a couple months, in Beyond videos and Lore You Should Know. Planar Volo's Guide was an easy call.

 

[bedir than]

Whereas writing up a 7th level sorcerer or 9th level priest of Tharizdun, creating a caravan, or the members of a thieves guild or mercenary band, that's hard work. Hard enough that I'd love a book of NPCs - a modern-day Rogue's Gallery. But evidently I'm far outside the norm in what I'd like WotC to publish to support my DMing.

Currently the NPCs that are WotC created are great for combat encounters, but poor for social and exploration interactions. At some point I would like something, maybe even a book, that focuses more on those two pillars of the game.

 

[Quickleaf]

The next book (both covers - standard and special edition - shown below) is a monster book/multiverse guide called Mordenkainen's Tome of Foes. On Monday the official press release will be coming with more information. Amusingly, the books that Mike Mearls and Nathan Stewart held up in today's "Fireside Chat" said "Tomb of Foes"; fortunately these are just mockups and the book is still being worked on for a May release. More info on Monday!

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Discover the truth about the great conflicts of the D&D multiverse in this supplement for the world's greatest roleplaying game.

This tome is built on the writings of the renowned wizard from the world of Greyhawk, gathered over a lifetime of research and scholarship. In his travels to other realms and other planes of existence, he has made many friends, and has risked his life an equal number of times, to amass the knowledge contained herein. In addition to Mordenkainen's musings on the endless wars of the multiverse, the book contains game statistics for dozens of monsters: new demons and devils, several varieties of elves and duergar, and a vast array of other creatures from throughout the planes of existence.

$49.95 / May 29th, 2018 / 256 pages, hardcover
(pagecount updated to 256; confirmed by WotC's Jeremy Crawford)

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Hmm, something weird is happening with the sequence of those planar symbols. From the leftmost one on the cover they appear in this order: Mount Celestia, Elysium, Beastlands, Arborea, ?, Baator, Acheron, Bytopia, Carceri, Pandemonium, Gehenna, Gray Waste, Mechanus, Arcadia...

This order is radically different from what’s presented in the DMG and other instances of the Great Wheel in older D&D books.

Do you think it’s deliberate or just another mock-up cover error?

 

[Demetrios1453]

Hmm, something weird is happening with the sequence of those planar symbols. From the leftmost one on the cover they appear in this order: Mount Celestia, Elysium, Beastlands, Arborea, ?, Baator, Acheron, Bytopia, Carceri, Pandemonium, Gehenna, Gray Waste, Mechanus, Arcadia...

This order is radically different from what’s presented in the DMG and other instances of the Great Wheel in older D&D books.

Do you think it’s deliberate or just another mock-up cover error?

I mentioned that earlier. I doubt they are going to change the order of the planes (as it would contradict what is in the 5e DMG), so it's just an artist playing around with the symbol order without knowing what they meant (more likely), or they were purposely implying that the creator of planar compass depicted didn't know the "correct" order and messed things up in a typical Clueless way (less likely).

 

[TwoSix]

Hmm, something weird is happening with the sequence of those planar symbols. From the leftmost one on the cover they appear in this order: Mount Celestia, Elysium, Beastlands, Arborea, ?, Baator, Acheron, Bytopia, Carceri, Pandemonium, Gehenna, Gray Waste, Mechanus, Arcadia...

This order is radically different from what’s presented in the DMG and other instances of the Great Wheel in older D&D books.

Do you think it’s deliberate or just another mock-up cover error?

If we're choosing between
a) secret coded message that the nature of the multiverse has changed, or
b) author misinterpretation of some picayune details

I'm probably going with choice b.

 

[Demetrios1453]

By the way, the artist on Reddit who gave out some minor hints a few weeks ago says (without going into any detail) that the illustrations he or she created for this book were basically a lot of planar monsters.

Also, if this does portend that the September release is a planar adventure, can I request that the dice set being released with it be Acheron-based? Come on, creators of D&D, you have an entire layer of a plane that is literally made up of polyhedral dice, and you haven't licensed a dice set based on it yet?

 

[Jacob Lewis]

I'd love a nostalgic regurgitation sub-forum.

Didn't we used to have one? I thought we had one. I think it's now "5th Edition" and "Everything That Is Not 5th Edition".

The irony, of course, is that most of the discussions in the 5e forums are comparisons between 5th Edition and previous editions, including previously released 5th Edition stuff.

 

[Ath'kethin]

Color me dour, but I mostly wonder how much of it will be reprints.

 

[pixellance1]

According to the Cover I see at least Athas with its two moons (center right) and Krynn with its three moons (center down)...

 

[GarrettKP]

Good thoughts, though I think the first chapter will be less location based and more like Volo's.

I think it will be more in the middle, which is why I said both Locations AND threats there.

I don't think we will get descriptions on 6 different Planar creatures in depth like Volo's did for base foes, but I do think we will basically get detailed descriptions on things like The Blood Wars, The Modron March, The Gith and Illithid conflict, so on and so forth. And in these sections they will not only detail the participants (Devils and Demons, Modrons, Gith and Illithid) but also the locations where the conflicts take place (Avernus and the Abyss, Mechanus, The Astral Plane, etc). So a mix of both lore on the creatures involved as well as the places the conflicts take place.

But either way I think the main focus on all of this will be the conflicts first and foremost. Why do Gith and Illithid fight constantly? Why do Demons continuously flood the first level of the Nine Hells? How do the rest of the Planes deal with the Modron March? Hell, maybe a look at why Dragons don't rule and how Tiamat and Bahamut war against each other since Beyond just did that video on Tiamat?

If I had to guess 6 planar conflicts to be detailed (to match the detailed breakdowns of monsters Volo did) I would think these make it in:

The Blood Wars
The Gith hunt of Illithid
The Modron March (less a War and more how conflicts may come from the event)
Corellon vs Gruumsh
Tiamat vs Bahamut
Vaati vs Miska the Wolf Spider/The Queen of Chaos

But there are so many more we could get into that keeping it to 6 seems unlikely (the book has a bigger page count than Volo's after all). Elemental conflicts, Shadowfell stuff, Angels vs Devils. So many conflicts to detail.