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?

 

[Quickleaf]

From what I can tell left to right: Hooked Horror, Imp?, Spriggin?, Gith, Drow, Succubus? (actually looks more like a Cambion), Skull Lord, Illithid, Displacer Beast. Please correct me if I am wrong on any of these.

https://i.imgur.com/fhpBm7M_d.webp?maxwidth=640&shape=thumb&fidelity=medium

The 3rd from left might be a Hordling...they did say there'd be lots of random tables...but otherwise sounds about right.

 

[dave2008]

Fierna doesn't have wings.

I suppose it could be Glasya. It's hard to say.

I wondered about that after I had typed that. I knew at least one of them did (at least in the 1e MM picture of Glasya), but I wasn't sure about both.

 

[gyor]

https://i.imgur.com/fhpBm7M_d.webp?maxwidth=640&shape=thumb&fidelity=medium

The 3rd from left might be a Hordling...they did say there'd be lots of random tables...but otherwise sounds about right.

Looking at the picture again, looking at what the bat winged woman is wearing, there is no way she is Glasya, Fierna, or Malcanthet. So a Cambion variant is most likely.

Hordlings sound like an interesting choice, expanding the fiendish races.

 

[gyor]

"Arborea is home to many elves and elven deities. Elve born on this plane have the celestial type and are wild at heart, ready to battle evil in a heartbeat. Otherwise, they look and behave like normal elves." From the Dungeon Masters Guide.

For those concerned about a lack of Celestial Eldarin, any elf born in Arborea gains the Celestial type, so there can be Celestial Drow, Celestial High Elves, Celestial Wood Elves, Celestial Wild Elves, Celestial Shadar Kai Elves, Celestial Sea Elves, Celestial Eldarin (including non humanoid elves). This could lead to some truely weird Celestials. This could be fun to combine with Celestial Patron Warlock, your Patron is just an elf born in Arborea.

I don't know if for this purpose Half Elves count as Elves.

 

[Demetrios1453]

I run a ton of AL and lore is not a problem. Most people have no idea and definitely don’t care as much as some here.

The YouTube vid is live.

https://youtu.be/AO0f3G4hu30

Thanks for that!

I just broke out in a huge grin watching that as Crawford confirmed that both PC-race Eladrin and various types of "greater" Eladrin will both be appearing, the latter presumably updating the classic eladrin types from 2e/3e days (although as fey, not celestials, which, as I stated some posts back, is hardly a huge leap). And, as said before, updated Yugoloths left out of the MM Now we only need word if the hierarch modrons will be updated and if any archons and/or guardinals will appear...

 

[QuietBrowser]

The 4e cosmology and lore changes are kinda being ignored.

The Realms specific ones are being rolled back in-world with the Sundering story and generally justified. But for the larger stuff beyond the Realms they're just acting like the lore changes never happened. Because there were sooo many changes given no in-Universe explanation: the creation of the Shaodwfell & Feywild, where Yugoloths went, why certain demons/devils switched "sides", what happened to the individual elemental planes, etc. Even when they did explain things (Asmodeus became a god and moved the Abyss) it often created more questions (How come gods hadn't done that before? Didn't the gods living in the Abyss object? How did that stop the Blood War when Hell and the Abyss weren't physically touching anyway?)

Since 5e has reverted back to the 1e cosmology with a few 4e nods (the Elemental Chaos as the intersection of elemental planes, the Feywild & Shadowfell) the Abyss is back to being part of the Great Wheel and is no longer part of the Elemental Chaos. And things like the Blood War have reignited... if it ever really ceased.

Because, getting rid of the Blood War was dumb.
Okay, a lot of people don't like it. Which is fine. They don't need to use that particular story seed. It just never comes up in their game. That's cool. Which is easy because it's off in the Outer Planes. You're not making any changes, just not using something that is there. But it's still there for people who do want it, who do like it.
But saying the Blood War is over takes it away from its fans. They have to actively change the story of the game and ignore canon.

Okay, I know that this is really himing in far too late, but I needed to challenge this:

The Blood War as never "over" in 4th edition. It was still around. There were a grand total of four changes; three to the Blood War itself, and one to how the planar sourcebooks were written.

Firstly, the Blood War stopped being the Big Blatant Plothook - Planescape splats could hardly go a page of flavor without talking about the Blood War, whilst in 4e, planar sourcebooks actually talked about things other than the Blood War. It was still there, it just wasn't the all-devouring plotline it was in AD&D.

As for the Blood War's changes... Firstly, it had a hot & cold cycle; in the "hot" phrase, you have armies of trillions upon trillions of fiends and damned souls battling across the planes to mutual extinction, and then, in the "cold" phase, you have them retreat to lick their wounds, replenish their numbers, rebuild their fortifications and plan out for the next grand scale onslaught. Secondly, Good was no longer made to look impotent in the face of the Blood War. And finally, the Blood War's root cause changed from a clumsy Moorcockian Evil Law vs. Evil Chaos affair to a more readily understandable battle over the Heart of the Abyss and the potential to claim the entire multiverse and reshape it to their desired form.

 

[Parmandur]

Okay, I know that this is really himing in far too late, but I needed to challenge this:

The Blood War as never "over" in 4th edition. It was still around. There were a grand total of four changes; three to the Blood War itself, and one to how the planar sourcebooks were written.

Firstly, the Blood War stopped being the Big Blatant Plothook - Planescape splats could hardly go a page of flavor without talking about the Blood War, whilst in 4e, planar sourcebooks actually talked about things other than the Blood War. It was still there, it just wasn't the all-devouring plotline it was in AD&D.

As for the Blood War's changes... Firstly, it had a hot & cold cycle; in the "hot" phrase, you have armies of trillions upon trillions of fiends and damned souls battling across the planes to mutual extinction, and then, in the "cold" phase, you have them retreat to lick their wounds, replenish their numbers, rebuild their fortifications and plan out for the next grand scale onslaught. Secondly, Good was no longer made to look impotent in the face of the Blood War. And finally, the Blood War's root cause changed from a clumsy Moorcockian Evil Law vs. Evil Chaos affair to a more readily understandable battle over the Heart of the Abyss and the potential to claim the entire multiverse and reshape it to their desired form.

But without clumsy Moorcockian kludge's, is it even D&D...?

 

[QuietBrowser]

Those of you have seen my comparisons of the World Axis to the Great Wheel are probably assuming that I just hate Planescape. In truth, my relationship with it is more complicated than that... if I had to sum up my feelings in a few short words, it'd be "great idea: lackluster execution".

See, I really like the concept of planar fantasy. The idea of traveling between magical realms out of the melting pot of the multiverse is just inherently awesome, and really sparks the side of me that like truly gonzo fantasy. Where else can a character concept like "vengeful dragon-hunting kobold who eats her draconic foes" feel perfectly reasonable? Where else is it perfectly normal to have a hexslinging cowboy, a cyborg samurai, a pyromantic pirate and an undead ninja all hanging out in the same bar? Exploring the realms of fiends, angels and faeries, traveling to worlds unseen, battling opponents who can shake the very order of creation itself - this is a concept that just sparks my imagination!

And then I actually got to look at real Planescape material... I think the best simile I can come up with for my presumably mostly-American audience is this: imagine you order a buffet at your favorite local style BBQ joint. Then imagine that, after you've paid, you sit down to your meal, and find that 90% of what you've been given is spam, tofu, and soy-products.

I went in expecting epic adventuring across a fantasy multiverse. What I got was a baroque and clunky backdrop that reeked of grid-filling and similar try-hard "edge-punk!" to the Old World of Darkness, and where most of your "adventuring" amounted to being pawns, puppets and dogsbodies of "Iconics" whom you were told you would never, ever, ever be a threat to, so don't even try. Planescape was in no way exempt from the "Status Quo is Sarosanct!" approach of TSR and early WotC era D&D, and it really did not do the setting any favors.

In the end... what I want out of a planar setting is far closer to Planescape: Torment - the game where you midwife a pregnant street, traverse the subterranean streets of a necropolis full of civilized undead, interact with the prostitutes at an intellectualistic brothel, and explore a fortress built from crystalized regret, all with the aid of a wisecracking skull, a fiend-blooded street urchin, an alien warrior-wizard with a deep secular religion, a chaste succubus, and Nordom. I want the kind of setting where I can truly embrace the wonders and weirdness of the multiverse. The kind of setting where a party comprised of a prime-worlder androgynous black mage trying to reshape his destiny, a half-marilith gnoll who is one of Yeenoghu's abandoned daughters, a duthka'gith out to free her people from Vlaakith CLVII's slavery, a tanuki ninja and the faerie dragon equivalent of a kobold would not attract more than a few stares.

And not, say, the kind of setting where I faff about as a lowly errand-boy in a party of "the generic races but from fancier lands!", running around a smokier, edgier Waterdeep full of jaded, stuck-up cynics and avoiding run-ins with lunatics from a bunch of philosphical gangs were many of their ideologies don't even make sense if you spend a few minutes thinking about them. Which, sadly, is generally how Planescape came off to me in execution.

That said, disappointing as I found Planescape in general to be, that doesn't mean I can't recognize and respect its hidden gems. I just think the World Axis cosmology and 4e's mentality presented a far better outline for Planescape that would let me play it and run it the way I want.

 

[gyor]

Those of you have seen my comparisons of the World Axis to the Great Wheel are probably assuming that I just hate Planescape. In truth, my relationship with it is more complicated than that... if I had to sum up my feelings in a few short words, it'd be "great idea: lackluster execution".

See, I really like the concept of planar fantasy. The idea of traveling between magical realms out of the melting pot of the multiverse is just inherently awesome, and really sparks the side of me that like truly gonzo fantasy. Where else can a character concept like "vengeful dragon-hunting kobold who eats her draconic foes" feel perfectly reasonable? Where else is it perfectly normal to have a hexslinging cowboy, a cyborg samurai, a pyromantic pirate and an undead ninja all hanging out in the same bar? Exploring the realms of fiends, angels and faeries, traveling to worlds unseen, battling opponents who can shake the very order of creation itself - this is a concept that just sparks my imagination!

And then I actually got to look at real Planescape material... I think the best simile I can come up with for my presumably mostly-American audience is this: imagine you order a buffet at your favorite local style BBQ joint. Then imagine that, after you've paid, you sit down to your meal, and find that 90% of what you've been given is spam, tofu, and soy-products.

I went in expecting epic adventuring across a fantasy multiverse. What I got was a baroque and clunky backdrop that reeked of grid-filling and similar try-hard "edge-punk!" to the Old World of Darkness, and where most of your "adventuring" amounted to being pawns, puppets and dogsbodies of "Iconics" whom you were told you would never, ever, ever be a threat to, so don't even try. Planescape was in no way exempt from the "Status Quo is Sarosanct!" approach of TSR and early WotC era D&D, and it really did not do the setting any favors.

In the end... what I want out of a planar setting is far closer to Planescape: Torment - the game where you midwife a pregnant street, traverse the subterranean streets of a necropolis full of civilized undead, interact with the prostitutes at an intellectualistic brothel, and explore a fortress built from crystalized regret, all with the aid of a wisecracking skull, a fiend-blooded street urchin, an alien warrior-wizard with a deep secular religion, a chaste succubus, and Nordom. I want the kind of setting where I can truly embrace the wonders and weirdness of the multiverse. The kind of setting where a party comprised of a prime-worlder androgynous black mage trying to reshape his destiny, a half-marilith gnoll who is one of Yeenoghu's abandoned daughters, a duthka'gith out to free her people from Vlaakith CLVII's slavery, a tanuki ninja and the faerie dragon equivalent of a kobold would not attract more than a few stares.

And not, say, the kind of setting where I faff about as a lowly errand-boy in a party of "the generic races but from fancier lands!", running around a smokier, edgier Waterdeep full of jaded, stuck-up cynics and avoiding run-ins with lunatics from a bunch of philosphical gangs were many of their ideologies don't even make sense if you spend a few minutes thinking about them. Which, sadly, is generally how Planescape came off to me in execution.

That said, disappointing as I found Planescape in general to be, that doesn't mean I can't recognize and respect its hidden gems. I just think the World Axis cosmology and 4e's mentality presented a far better outline for Planescape that would let me play it and run it the way I want.

Interesting perpective. How do you feel about the 3e Forgotten Realms Cosmology and Eberrons Cosmology for planar adventures instead of the great wheel?

 

[QuietBrowser]

Interesting perpective. How do you feel about the 3e Forgotten Realms Cosmology and Eberrons Cosmology for planar adventures instead of the great wheel?

I can't say I feel anything about them. I don't know the first thing about them. I only know the Great Wheel (2e/3e/5e) and the World Axis with any real solidity; I've never had the chance to read any of the reference material for 3e Faerun's planar cosmology (the World Tree?) or Eberron's.