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?

 

[Azzy]

Pre-ordered!

 

[Quickleaf]

They're B/X drow aren't they?

Kinda. There are several similarities that could lead to equating Shadow Elves with Drow...

1. They both dwell underground.
2. They both have a matriarchal society, or at the very least a matriarchal religion and religious leaders.
3. They are both perceived as being evil. However the Shadow Elves seem more Neutral, and more isolationist than Drow with their wicked plans for the surface world.
4. They are both referred to using terms usually reserved for less than wholesome things, i.e. dark and shadow.

With the Shadow Elves, IIRC, they had "engineers" that caused some kind of magical "nuclear bomb" which resulted in them being cast out of Alfheim. They hate the elves of Alfheim, but are otherwise coldly indifferent to other surface races. Honestly, it's hard to remember much from back in those days as I was a kid. I do know a Shadow Elf appeared in Uncaged: Faces of Sigil in the Planescape line.

 

[FitzTheRuke]

Edit: This comment is in response to the talk about marking-up the price of the special cover, but I lost my quote:

Speaking as the owner of a Comic and Game store for 25 years, this sounds like a strange practice to me.

They are specifically made so we can compete with online discounters, not so we can gouge our customers. It's not something I would do. Some retailers get overly fixated on what they see will be the eventual aftermarket value of the book (like they do when they mark-up "hot" comics.) Again, I personally think that there should (in the very least) be a delay time between something being released, and it being "worth money" in the aftermarket sense.

Or in other words, it should go for regular price before it goes for "collector's mark-up". (My gut likes this time to be measured in years, but the world does stuff faster these days!)

 

[vecna00]

Re: "Playable Mind Flayers will never, ever be a thing in D&D"... weren't Mind Flayers a playable race in the 3.5 book Savage Species? Or is my memory playing tricks on me?

You are 102% correct.

 

[Herosmith14]

Uh, just a thought. What do you think is the likelihood we'll see a Genazi and/or Aarocokra reprint? Both have ties to elemental PLANES, and in Aa's case, them having flight doesn't rule them out because Avariel might wind up in there. This would obviously make the EEPC completely useless, because all of its content will have been split up among other crunch books. Deep Gnome in SCAG Goliath in VGtM, spells in XGtE, and possibly Aarocokra/Genazi in MToF.


Sent from my iPhone using EN World

 

[Winterthorn]

Shadow Elves is reminding me of Mystara...

I happen to have my copy on hand as I am working on my own 5E campaign setting. I did not know Shadar-kai were originally elves, but now I see a way of blending the material of GAZ 13 with the Shadowfell and the elven kind that may be native there. I have already set the Drow as an evil off-shoot corrupted by Lolth from the Shadow Elves/Shadar-kai that left the Shadowfell to invade the Underdark of my campaign world, just as the High, Wood, and other elves are off-shoots of the Eladrin dwelling in the Feywild. There is much more to my setting, as a WIP, but predicated upon Shadar-kai being originally elves GAZ 13 has found new use to me!

 

[Jester David]

Re: "Playable Mind Flayers will never, ever be a thing in D&D"... weren't Mind Flayers a playable race in the 3.5 book Savage Species? Or is my memory playing tricks on me?

They were in the game with a PC write-up, but they weren't playable.

 

[Demetrios1453]

Mearls on Twitter, responding to a question asking if the phoenix will be in MToF:

"Funny story - we kept deleting it from the book, but every day when we went back to work it would be back in there and my desk would be on fire."

 

[gyor]

I'm wondering it the idea of the Elves having started off as shaoeshifting Fey will tie into the Leshay.

The Leshay we're one of the Creator Races of Faerun along with the Sarrukh, the Batrachi, the Aaerie, and humans.

The Leshay we're said to have created the lesser fey races, to have been immortal, and to have been Fey shape shutters. They look very similar to Elves, but far more powerful (epic powerful).

Perhaps MTOF has Elves descended from the Leshay.

 

[darjr]

Tome of Foes updated on Amazon to 256 pages.

It's down to $30 and it's 141 out of all books.

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